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Breakthrough battery can charge up in seconds
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by nukegingrich | March 11, 2009 at 04:12 pm
803 views | 39 Recommendations | 6 comments
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Scientists in the United States have invented a battery that can charge in seconds, promising a revolution in power storage that could also help green cars and renewable energy.
The advance allows lithium-ion batteries, the standard variety used in consumer electronics and cells for electric or hybrid vehicles, both to charge and discharge stored energy more quickly than at present.
This should lead to smaller, lighter batteries for mobile phones and other devices, which can be fully charged when plugged in for a few seconds.
Lithium-ion batteries that can be recharged in a fraction of the time ... this is truly a game changer.
Imagine an electric vehicle that can be re-charged in minutes, rather than hours. This new process effectively removes the greatest obstacle to widespread acceptance of electric vehicles.
Scientists at M.I.T. say that the new batteries could be ready within 2 or 3 years.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (6)
at 21:22 on March 11th, 2009
Lithium-ion batteries (sometimes abbreviated Li-ion batteries) are a type ofrechargeable battery in which a lithium ion moves between the anode and cathode. The lithium ion moves from the anode to the cathode during discharge and in reverse, from the cathode to the anode, when charging.
Lithium ion batteries are common in consumer electronics. They are one of the most popular types of battery for portable electronics, with one of the best energy-to-weight ratios, no memory effect, and a slow loss of charge when not in use. In addition to uses for consumer electronics, lithium-ion batteries are growing in popularity for defense, automotive, and aerospace applications due to their high energy density. However certain kinds of mistreatment may cause Li-ion batteries to explode.
The three primary functional components of a lithium ion battery are the anode, cathode, and electrolyte, for which a variety of materials may be used. Commercially, the most popular material for the anode is graphite. The cathode is generally one of three materials: a layered oxide, such as lithium cobalt oxide, one based on a polyanion, such as lithium iron phosphate, or a spinel, such as lithium manganese oxide, although materials such as TiS2 (titanium disulfide) were originally used. Depending on the choice of material for the anode, cathode, and electrolyte the voltage, capacity, life, and safety of a lithium ion battery can change dramatically. Lithium ion batteries are not to be confused with lithium batteries, the key difference being that lithium batteries areprimary batteries containing metallic lithium while lithium-ion batteries are secondary batteries containing an intercalation anode material.
at 02:03 on March 12th, 2009
hopefully, this would lead to less batteries being produced and in turn dumped in land fills or ditched into the ocean.............
at 09:37 on March 12th, 2009
American ingenuity: M.I.T.
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/recent.html
at 10:36 on March 12th, 2009
there already is an MIT spin off copmany A123 Systems (http://www.a123systems.com/technology) with a Li-ion Phosphate batteries on the market. I believe they have already licensed this new development also. Two applications that are often talked about for rapid charging and discharging, race cars and laser weapons.
Regardless of the rate of charge on the battery is the limit at households. Typically you can expect households to have 120 and 220volt access and with currents up to 200Amps. In reality you can still expect to have to charge for about 3 hours. This number depends on how low the battery is and how high the manufacturer limits the battery. Typically you dont fully discharge to zero and full recharge to 100%.
Still this is a amazing breakthrough, battery technology is tremendously difficult. But if we are to switch to an electric based transportation society, it is hugely important.
The GM Volt will be huge for this transition, just as the Prius has been up to now.
at 09:06 on August 15th, 2009
While a home power outlet may provide only limited current, the car's electric motor, when used as a generator, is capable of producing much more current, so when regenerative breaking is used this new battery technology is capable of recuperating most of the car's kinetic energy to be reused later. That's the best reason for using this technology in electric vehicles. It will allow EV's to use much smaller battery packs because regenerative breaking cars have greater range per kilowatt hour. The smaller battery packs will cost less, take less time to recharge from the wall and will make the cars lighter, allowing them to accelerate faster. And because the cars' friction brakes will be used only sparingly they will not need to be replaced nearly as often.
at 15:52 on March 13th, 2009
I can't wait to it's made practicle. It will make life that little more convienient