The B2B platform for full-electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles: Industry News

MIT researchers have developed a new manufacturing method of lithium-ion battery technology that allows the production of smaller and lighter batteries that can be charged and discharged in just seconds. The technology could also be applied for electric vehicles allowing a much faster charging.

The researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have managed to develop a new manufacturing method for lithium-ion batteries that can charge and discharge as fast as a super capacitor. With the new technology small batteries for mobiles and gadgets can be charged in 10 to 20 seconds. In addition, MIT’s technology allows a reduction in battery weight and size and could, therefore, be applicable to the manufacture of car batteries in the future.

MIT explains its technology



The MIT explained that they used existing battery material and changed into a “beltway” that allows rapid transit of electrical energy. This technology could also be applied to batteries of electric vehicles, with the charging time, however, being dependent on the electric grid of the user as well.

“While lithium batteries have high energy densities, they charge and discharge relatively slowly”, MIT said. “However, MIT about five years ago predicted that the material used in the batteries, lithium iron phosphate, should actually carry charges must faster.
The key was the way lithium ions in the material move through tunnels that can be accessed from the surface of the material. Those ions move quickly if near a tunnel, while others not near tunnels were blocked,” the MIT researcher adds.

Background

Even though the lithium-ion battery is supposed to be the technology for the future of the vehicle electrification, there are the much-discussed drawbacks such as the charging time. So far, most researchers believed that there is a speed limit on the lithium ions and electrons that pass through the batteries to form an electrochemical circuit.

The innovative technology the MIT involves the already known technology that relies on lithium ions as charge carriers within the battery. However, with the new approach the lithium is located in a special material that was designed to move more rapidly through the battery. This allows the charges to be shifted in and out of storage much quicker than in the normal formulations of lithium batteries. A battery having integrated this technology and using the proper electrodes can perform a complete charge in under 10 seconds, which is the sort of performance normally characterising super capacitors.