Faster Recharging Batteries Possible After New Insights
January 19, 2017 | Bath UniversityEstimated reading time: 1 minute
Faster recharging lithium batteries could be developed after scientists figured out why adding charged metal atoms to tunnel structures within batteries improves their performance.
Rechargeable lithium batteries have helped power the ‘portable revolution’ in mobile phones, laptops and tablet computers, and new generations of lithium batteries are being developed for electric vehicles and to store energy from wind and solar power.
Now the research groups of Professor Saiful Islam of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Bath, and Professor Reza Shahbazian-Yassar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, have gained important insights to help improve the performance of lithium batteries, published in the leading journal Nature Communications.
Storing electrical energy more quickly than current electrodes is important for future applications in portable electronics and electric vehicles.
It was recently discovered that that large metal ions such as potassium can improve charge storage in batteries, but it wasn’t understood why this was the case.
The research teams used a powerful combination of structural experiments and computer simulations to unravel for the first time why adding charged potassium into tunnel-like structures of low-cost manganese oxide has a strong beneficial effect on the battery performance.
They discovered that adding positively charged ions increased how fast lithium moves within the tunnel structures, which is crucial to improving the charging of batteries.
Professor Islam said: “Understanding these processes is important for the future design and development of battery materials, and could lead to faster charging batteries that will benefit consumers and industry.
“Developing new materials holds the key to lighter, cheaper and safer batteries, including for electric vehicles which will help cut carbon emissions.”
The research is funded by a £3.9 million Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Supergen grant.
The University of Bath is a major centre for sustainable energy and chemical research. This includes the Centre for Sustainable Chemical Technologies and the Institute for Sustainable Energy and the Environment.
Suggested Items
Altair Acquires Research in Flight, Forging a New Path for Aerodynamic Analysis
05/07/2024 | AltairAltair a global leader in computational intelligence, announced it has acquired Research in Flight, maker of FlightStream®, which provides computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software with a large footprint in the aerospace and defense sector and a growing presence in marine, energy, turbomachinery, and automotive applications.
Altair Acquires Research in Flight, Forging a New Path for Aerodynamic Analysis
05/03/2024 | AltairAltair a global leader in computational intelligence, announced it has acquired Research in Flight, maker of FlightStream®, which provides computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software with a large footprint in the aerospace and defense sector and a growing presence in marine, energy, turbomachinery, and automotive applications.
Intel Takes Next Step Toward Building Scalable Silicon-Based Quantum Processors
05/02/2024 | BUSINESS WIRENature published an Intel research paper, “Probing single electrons across 300-mm spin qubit wafers,” demonstrating state-of-the-art uniformity, fidelity and measurement statistics of spin qubits.
Argonne, Toyota Collaborate on Cutting-Edge Battery Recycling Process
05/01/2024 | BUSINESS WIREThe U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has recently launched a collaboration with Toyota Motor North America that could reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign sources of battery materials.
Chinese Smartphone Market Maintains its Recovery Momentum at 6.5% Growth in 1Q24,
04/26/2024 | IDCAccording to preliminary data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, China smartphone shipments grew 6.5% year over year (YoY) to 69.3 million units in 1Q24.