Thursday, March 12th 2009
Re-engineered Battery Material Could Lead to Rapid Recharging of Many Devices
MIT engineers have created a kind of beltway that allows for the rapid transit of electrical energy through a well-known battery material, an advance that could usher in smaller, lighter batteries -- for cell phones and other devices -- that could recharge in seconds rather than hours. The work could also allow for the quick recharging of batteries in electric cars, although that particular application would be limited by the amount of power available to a homeowner through the electric grid.
The work, led by Gerbrand Ceder, the Richard P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, is reported in the March 12 issue of Nature. Because the material involved is not new -- the researchers have simply changed the way they make it -- Ceder believes the work could make it into the marketplace within two to three years.
State-of-the-art lithium rechargeable batteries have very high energy densities -- they are good at storing large amounts of charge. The tradeoff is that they have relatively slow power rates -- they are sluggish at gaining and discharging that energy. Consider current batteries for electric cars. "They have a lot of energy, so you can drive at 55 mph for a long time, but the power is low. You can't accelerate quickly," Ceder said.
Why the slow power rates? Traditionally, scientists have thought that the lithium ions responsible, along with electrons, for carrying charge across the battery simply move too slowly through the material.
About five years ago, however, Ceder and colleagues made a surprising discovery. Computer calculations of a well-known battery material, lithium iron phosphate, predicted that the material's lithium ions should actually be moving extremely quickly.
"If transport of the lithium ions was so fast, something else had to be the problem," Ceder said.
Further calculations showed that lithium ions can indeed move very quickly into the material but only through tunnels accessed from the surface. If a lithium ion at the surface is directly in front of a tunnel entrance, there's no problem: it proceeds efficiently into the tunnel. But if the ion isn't directly in front, it is prevented from reaching the tunnel entrance because it cannot move to access that entrance.
Ceder and Byoungwoo Kang, a graduate student in materials science and engineering, devised a way around the problem by creating a new surface structure that does allow the lithium ions to move quickly around the outside of the material, much like a beltway around a city. When an ion traveling along this beltway reaches a tunnel, it is instantly diverted into it. Kang is a coauthor of the Nature paper.
Using their new processing technique, the two went on to make a small battery that could be fully charged or discharged in 10 to 20 seconds (it takes six minutes to fully charge or discharge a cell made from the unprocessed material).
Ceder notes that further tests showed that unlike other battery materials, the new material does not degrade as much when repeatedly charged and recharged. This could lead to smaller, lighter batteries, because less material is needed for the same result.
"The ability to charge and discharge batteries in a matter of seconds rather than hours may open up new technological applications and induce lifestyle changes," Ceder and Kang conclude in their Nature paper.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation through the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers program and the Batteries for Advanced Transportation Program of the U.S. Department of Energy. It has been licensed by two companies.
Source:
MIT News Office
The work, led by Gerbrand Ceder, the Richard P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, is reported in the March 12 issue of Nature. Because the material involved is not new -- the researchers have simply changed the way they make it -- Ceder believes the work could make it into the marketplace within two to three years.
Why the slow power rates? Traditionally, scientists have thought that the lithium ions responsible, along with electrons, for carrying charge across the battery simply move too slowly through the material.
About five years ago, however, Ceder and colleagues made a surprising discovery. Computer calculations of a well-known battery material, lithium iron phosphate, predicted that the material's lithium ions should actually be moving extremely quickly.
"If transport of the lithium ions was so fast, something else had to be the problem," Ceder said.
Further calculations showed that lithium ions can indeed move very quickly into the material but only through tunnels accessed from the surface. If a lithium ion at the surface is directly in front of a tunnel entrance, there's no problem: it proceeds efficiently into the tunnel. But if the ion isn't directly in front, it is prevented from reaching the tunnel entrance because it cannot move to access that entrance.
Ceder and Byoungwoo Kang, a graduate student in materials science and engineering, devised a way around the problem by creating a new surface structure that does allow the lithium ions to move quickly around the outside of the material, much like a beltway around a city. When an ion traveling along this beltway reaches a tunnel, it is instantly diverted into it. Kang is a coauthor of the Nature paper.
Using their new processing technique, the two went on to make a small battery that could be fully charged or discharged in 10 to 20 seconds (it takes six minutes to fully charge or discharge a cell made from the unprocessed material).
Ceder notes that further tests showed that unlike other battery materials, the new material does not degrade as much when repeatedly charged and recharged. This could lead to smaller, lighter batteries, because less material is needed for the same result.
"The ability to charge and discharge batteries in a matter of seconds rather than hours may open up new technological applications and induce lifestyle changes," Ceder and Kang conclude in their Nature paper.
This work was supported by the National Science Foundation through the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers program and the Batteries for Advanced Transportation Program of the U.S. Department of Energy. It has been licensed by two companies.
71 Comments on Re-engineered Battery Material Could Lead to Rapid Recharging of Many Devices
Dont they teach you how to read in school these days? This is 4th grade level English.
And it wasnt an authority action, it was a shocking surprize. You do know what they say about assumption?
I look forward to seeing what we utilize this concept for. My only concern is loosing the charge quicker then actually charging the battery. Hybrid vehicles are the way of our transportation future over the next 25 - 50 years, but we cant have a motor at idle because the constant rev will cause physical damage, besides they addressed that issue with VVT, AjC & some crazy lubricant that i forgot the name of.
Heat ? I think heat will also play a vital role in the adoption of this technology. Same for stability and safety.
We should savour the porn/vibrator talk untill they install MCP's into them that can support A.I features.
You were speaking about using the gas engine to charge the battery and he said:To which your response was a crap load of wrong information, finished with the infamous "Dont they teach you these things in school?? This is 4th grade science."
Tell me where in his message he talks about idling cars consuming the same as working ones or whatnot. He doesn't, he just said that a gas engine alone would be more efficient than your suggestion. Which it is, but instead of assuming it, you came up with the BS, finished with the infamous sentence. I wouldn't have replied if your message finished in a proper manner. But telling him he missed some classes or something, after what you wrote?!!?? No, man.
So you could learn a fact or two before attacking people eh? And maybe notice that my natural language is not english before telling me anything about english, eh? After all, it's not the first time I say it and you could have read my info to the left and know that I'm NOT from the US or any english speaking country, but ey I guess it requires some geography knowledge. Anyway, you could have noticed something by the fact that I wrote energie so many times, instead of its correct spelling. Something I myself noticed when I saw my message quoted in your post...
Im from Russia, but i see things in my head on how things work 10 steps further. I had to take Chemistry and Physics in 4th grade and i went to public school. Not because i was smart, but because it was a requirement of public schools.
I suggested using small diesel engine, because it has more torque at lower RPM, in my original post. And diesel engine is more efficient then regular gas engine.
Thus if you implemented this new battery material in to batteries to drive the car it self, then the small diesel engine can recharge it in less time, lets say x10 times faster for the sake of argument, because we dont know exact figures at this time.
Thus less fuel is used in the end.
Or even if small Honda generator used that can power half the house, it is very efficient, and can run on 6.6 gallons of fuel all day, at the same time providing enough energy to recharge a fast rapid rechargeable battery. 6500 watts (54.1/27.1 A) 120/240V, Operates 10 hours @ 50% load on 6.6 gal.
In the end you would still be using less fuel while doubling your millage. This will work if we know for sure that the batteries with new material can sustain same amount of charge for same amount of time that a current batteries do in today's hybrid cars.
In the end of this argument, if you combined all my posts, bits and pieces of information, aside the once where i was joking about vibrators. You will clearly see all the answers, even to his question/s.
So my idea is not crap or BS, because no one else came up with a better one even your self. Even light bulb was a pipe dream, or home computers, and people thought that Bill Gates was crazy. And look where we are now. All it took imagination and inovation and it became real.
Speaking of Gas Engines, if you still think im full of BS and dumb ideas. Look at Audi racing team, they made a race car using diesel engine. And now, many race car companies are going in the same direction.
Find a video on Top Gear, where a Twin Turbo Charged Audi A8 with a diesel V8 engine, drove 800 miles on 19.7 gallons of fuel. Show me any gas car that has done that with same or similar engine size. I doubt Prius can even do that, but i have to look in to it further.
So you still think my idea is BS? Because this is basic knowledge now days. All you have to do is combine peanut butter with jelly and BAM! you have something new and tasty.
Now i know you may ask your self; why dont companies do what i suggested. Well, we dont have fast rechargeable batteries, thus a gas engine on todays hybrid cars still used to drive the car it self.
edited;
Here is a curve ball for you. If you watch Top Gear episode, where they drove a Toyota Prius around the track for 10 laps as fast as it can go, it got 17MPG. At the same time a newer BWM M3 with a v8 engine, that had to follow Prius for 10 laps, got about (if my memory serves me right) got 23 MPG.
Something to think about, but you will get your answer if you watch the episode.
p.s.
Its too bad you cant reply often, because i enjoy this types of discussions.
edited for grammar and spelling errors or lack of it, additional thoughts and information.
I ran my truck idling for +6 hours straight many times with out any damage what so ever.
I have driven it to Florida (1300 miles) and Canada (600Miles) many times at constant speed and constant REV/RPM with no side effect what so ever. Its a Dodge Durango, 5.2L V8 engine. With over 132,000 miles on the odometer it still runs like new. It takes about half a turn of the engine to start it up, and i never used any crazy lubricant.
Just a small example. Lawnmowers operate at constant RPM for years with out any side effect what so ever.
Nascars, that go in a circle for 6 hours at a time, their engine pretty much stays with in same REV/RPM range with no side effects at all.
If you ever read used car adds, many people will say; "all highway miles". Thats because on highway, engine most of the time stays with in same REV/RPM range, thus less wear and tear on the engine it self.
How ever, when an engine is new, it is best to be driven in a city condition during its break in period.
A BMW engine, takes about 20k-30k miles till it is fully broken in.
A small tip.
If you were to buy a used car that has same millage and is in the same condition. Dont buy it from a guy that been delivering pizza, buy it from the guy that drove his car long range most of the time.
And to respond to your last question. Of course I still know you're wrong. LOL. Don't worry you are not the first one that thinks he has discovered the next best thing since sliced bread. :laugh:
What I'm explaining is certainly not 4th grade physics, but I can guarantee you that you are wrong with that.
Yes they produce less emissions, but they do get better MPG in the end. Other wise whats the point of having hybrids in the first place??
Standard gas powered Honda Civic gets about 35MPG. Hybrid Civic gets almost 60MPG. Thats right there is increase in efficiency it self.
If you are thinking that gas engine it self has not improved on gas efficiency. then i do agree. Because gas engine on its own has 33% efficiency by the time the energy is put down in the road.
But the whole argument is MPG, and not out put efficiency of a gas/diesel powered engine.
Todays fuel powered engine is flawed in many ways do to too many moving parts/components, i do agree there. But we are talking only about the final MPG.
Thats why they are working on having electrical motors connected directly to the wheel it self. Because there is less energy loss through drive train. It was posted on Engadget few weeks ago.
I know what you are thinking, but you are over think it in this discussion.If that is true/fact, then hybrid cars today would not be getting better MPG in the first place.
As i said earlier, a standard civic gets 35MPG, a hybrid Civic gets 60MPG. The numbers speak for them selfs.
And what's the point of using hybrids? Once again, because they are cleaner than standard cars and have better mileages than pure electric cars. The news in the OP will make pure electric cars a much better option, but will not enable better hybrids, except for the better electric portion. And to finish with this nonsense about hybrids: hybrids don't use the combustion engine to charge the batteries and will never do, because it's much more efficient to have it powered off and just kick n when it's necessary.
As a side note, hybrids if not very expensive compared to a normal car, could indeed make you save up a bit of money, because power plants obtain much better deals in combustible thatn what we do, and at the same time 10000 liters of fuel in a power plant can create much more energy than the same ammount of fuel distributed into many cars, plus there are many other and more efficient ways to obtain electricity. That's why electric cars are a better long term solution. In any case the worst solution of all of them, with a good margin, is a small engine feeding the batteries in a car.
- Emissions. Although hydrogen emissions are much better, the would still be bad in a large scale.
- It's a limited resource and only happens to be cheaper ecause it's not widely used. It's a good stop gap solution, but we have to start looking for better and definitive solutions. Efficient electric cars with fast charging batteries like the ones in the OP are a good place to start IMHO.
DarkMatter.
The argument is about gas vs hybrid, and not gas vs electric cars. Learn to read.
Gas engine in to days hybrid cars is used to recharge the batteries and to work side by side with electric motor at the same time if a vehicle requires more power in order to go up hill or to carry more load.
Electric Engine and Gas Engine in todays hybrids it connected to the main drive train. They work together.
Anyway water is guilty of 90% of the greenhouse effect, believe it or not, and there is controversy to whether if the ammount of water that would be thrown into the atmosphere would be harmful for the ambient or not. Maybe not globally, but it could certainly create ugly and permanent clouds/fog/vapor in very populated areas and create a butterfly effect from there. Think that although only water would be emitted, it would be much more water ammount than the ammount of CO2 that is emitted nowadays. It would be less harmful in any case IMO, just not an ideal solution.
*sorry if the terms are incorrect, I just don't know them in english, thank google translator if they are wrong or you can't understand them or what I mean
EDIT: I didn't explain it well. If the air is dirty, it does contribute more to the greenhouse effect, but not because of the fact is contiminated or that it has more/less oxygen, but because it's more reflective.
From the wiki:My 90% figure came from a more recent study which said that older measures were wrong (I'm not going to discuss which study is wrong, take the nmbers you prefer) and/or it could be because they included the importance of the clouds mentioned here in the last sentence, but were not taken into account for the above numbers...
Greenhouse effect? So we should raise pollution to lower natural green house effect? Greenhouse effect is mainly due to human-produced increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and changes in the use of land.
You are jumping all over the place now.
The original debate was about MPG, now you are jumping all over the place.
Just to begin with, greenhouse effect is not created by humans, it's been increased by humans which is not the same. GHE (abreviated) is been happening since long before there was life in Earth. In fact, is one of the main factors that led to the creation of life in our planet. Without the GHE that is primarily created by water vapor, and in those ages the emissions from volcanic activity, our planet would have a surface temperature of -80C IRRC and wouldn't be able to sustain any form of life.
So what are the wining numbers? Do share. I have 5 kids to feed and could use extra million or two.
You did say that increase in h2o from cars is bad. So according to your theory, to compensate for it, the only right thing to do is pollute more.
Too much oxygen is bad for us or this planet. No?
Raised by humans, created by humans, its all the same. We are here and we are polluting this planet.
Now back to MPG. You have yet to provide solid facts and or prove that my idea wont work.
You do know that idea is, well is almost the same as my own opinion. And you do know what they say about opinion? Im always right.:laugh:
By raised I meant increased (fixed). Sorry God, oh sorry, because I don't always use the proper term in a foreign language. Please shoot me on the head.
Sounds like a cult, and it has no place in this discussion at all. Religion has nothing to do with science or MPG a hybrid car can get.
So do please use your magic and tell me what the wining lottery numbers are.
You havent provided any substantial evidence/facts that i am wrong and or that my idea wont work in the first place.