At some point, scale-wise, friction problems become electrochemical rate problems, I suppose. See this recently published research article on lithium iron phosp

At some point, scale-wise, friction problems become electrochemical rate problems, I suppose. See this recently published research article on lithium iron phosphate batteries, opening: > "Reaction rates at spatially heterogeneous, unstable interfaces are notoriously difficult to quantify, yet are essential in engineering many chemical systems, such as batteries and electrocatalysts..." https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06393-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06393-x It's a much harder problem than working with pure crystals or gas-phase molecules or similar, which makes sense, as a half-discharged battery is a very messy system at the molecular-atomic level. See also news story on the above article: > “We discovered at the nano scale that variation of the carbon coating thickness directly controls the rate, which is something you could never figure out if you didn't have all of this modeling and image analysis,” Bazant says. https://news.mit.edu/2023/pixel-analysis-yields-insights-lithium-ion-batteries-0913 https://news.mit.edu/2023/pixel-analysis-yields-insights-lit... So, the field seems to be progressing steadily - and more funding for fundamental solid-state materials science research makes sense, too.