Lithium Batteries: research to reduce charging time
If the advantage of the lithium-ion battery today is the high energy density, what they need instead is still a recharge time shorter. In this regard, the engineers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) have identified a way to speed up their process.
Gerbrand Ceder and Richard P. Simmons Institute of Engineering and Materials Science at MIT have found that a greater freedom of movement of lithium ions within the material would have increased the capacity of the batteries. So researchers have worked on the structure of the material, going to create, in the surface region, a sort of "preferential" for lithium ions, just like a road junction around a city. And 'the line of research that moves in the field of nanotechnology.
The test carried out on a battery so conceived has recorded a cycle of loading or unloading between 10 and 20 seconds, and a real record compared to the traditional six minutes.
Greater structural efficiency also means that we use less material to achieve high performance: for this reason, it will be possible to produce batteries smaller and lighter, with a double benefit: significant reduction of charging time and battery degradation considerably below the classics. All this would allow a significant jump in performance in a very wide range of applications, from cell phones to electric cars.
To benefit from it, therefore, might be just the car, which at this time seems to see in its electrification the way to earn the faster the access road to a future capable of awakening against him, by consumers, a feeling that the economic and financial crisis and fears related to the pollution of their living environment, have declined considerably.
In fact, the current limit of the batteries for electric cars is a limited speed in the processes of charging energy and power delivery that does not allow to rapidly accelerate. Thanks to the new battery technology will be possible to use an electric car without altering their personal habits, discovering unexpected emotions and performance.
As the MIT researchers are studying and will already be aware of the characteristics of the material used, the lithium iron phosphate batteries that consists precisely, the new technology could be on the market within two or three years.
17/03/2009
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Source:
Italian version of ReteArchitetti.it