Researchers Develop Faster Charging Material That Can Charge Electric Cars In Six Minutes
In what could drive Elon Musk to push another tweet, a team of South Korean researchers has developed a faster charging and longer-lasting battery material that can juice up electric cars up to 90 percent in just six minutes.
Unlike conventional cars that use internal combustion engines, electric cars are solely powered by lithium-ion batteries, so the battery performance defines the car's overall performance.
The research teams of professor Byoungwoo Kang and Dr. Minkyung Kim from Pohang University of Science and Technology, along with professor Won-Sub Yoon at Sungkyunkwan University proved for the first time that high power can be produced by significantly reducing the charging and discharging time without reducing the particle size.
The charging material can charge up to 90% in a few minutes. Flickr
For fast charging and discharging of Li-ion batteries, methods that reduce the particle size of electrode materials were used so far.
However, reducing the particle size has the disadvantage of decreasing the volumetric energy density of the batteries.
To this, the research team confirmed that if an intermediate phase in the phase transition is formed during the charging and discharging, high power can be generated without losing high energy density or reducing the particle size through rapid charging and discharging, enabling the development of long-lasting Li-ion batteries.
Using the synthesis method developed by the research team, one can induce an intermediate phase that acts as a structural buffer that can dramatically reduce the change in volume between the two phases in a particle.
In addition, it has been confirmed that this buffering intermediate phase can help create and grow a new phase within the particle, improving the speed of insertion and removal of lithium in the particle, the researchers noted.
"This research has laid the foundation for developing Li-ion batteries that can achieve quick charging and discharging speed, high energy density, and prolonged performance," he said in a paper published in the leading journal Energy & Environmental Science. (IANS)
