Recharge A Battery in Seconds
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Battery, Recharge, Re-Engineered
ZoomCould
it be possible to recharge batteries in seconds rather than hours?
That's a definite "yes" according to MIT engineers after creating an
electrical beltway.
Although hooking up a power adapter
to a cell phone or iPod -and waiting for what seems like forever for
the devices to recharge- is a part of everyday living, wouldn't it be
just grand if those devices could recharge on the fly? Instead of
thirty minutes or an hour, they'd power up in ten or fifteen seconds?
Cutting down battery recharge time -while saving valuable consumer
time- would change the lifestyle of every individual on the face of the
planet, whether they're juicing up Sony's PlayStation Portable or
keeping YouTube on the laptop from blacking out.
For a group of MIT engineers,
that's exactly what they set out to do: re-engineer the surface of
lithium iron phosphate to ultimately create an efficient, electrical
beltway for lithium ions to use. Because state-of-the art rechargeable batteries
have relatively low power rates despite their high energy densities,
researchers once thought that lithium ions (and electrons) moved too
slowly through the battery material. However, Gerbrand Ceder, the
Richard P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, also
head of the current project, said that the ions themselves should
actually be moving very quickly according to computer calculations.
Thus, he concluded that something else was causing the slowdown.
Further
study showed that the lithium ions indeed moved extremely fast into the
battery material, but only by way of surface tunnels if set directly in
the path of the lithium ions; those that did not enter surface tunnels
did not pass into the material. The new surface created by Ceder and
Byoungwoo Kang, a graduate student, allows the lithium ions to move
across the material as if on the beltway of a major city, getting off
at the next exit -a surface tunnel- rather than halting altogether.
By
utilizing this newly re-engineered material, Ceder and Kang created a
small battery that could be fully recharged or discharged in 10 to 20
seconds- a fraction of the time it takes to recharge a battery cell
made from the original, unprocessed material. As an additional benefit,
the new material degrades far less than current rechargeable batteries
when repeatedly charged and recharged. And because less material is
needed for the same end result, consumers would benefit from a lighter,
smaller battery.
"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.
Apparently, the re-engineered material can also be applied to electric
car batteries although they would be limited to the amount of power
available on the consumer's electric grid.
Still, faster
recharge times would make the world a better place. Unfortunately, the
re-engineered rechargeable batteries won't see the light of day -or at
least the hands of consumers- for another two or three years.
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Oh joy I will be waiting for that day
This is fantastic news. Then we could charge up an electric car at high power high voltage stations in like 5 minutes instead of 9 hours. Gasoline will be history. Thanks Venezula and Iran, your domination of the worlds most valuable resource is comming to an end. We won't really need it as much anymore.
very cool...
Wow, that's good research right there... which should be patented!
Gasoline will never be 'history', because it is a phenominal distributed high energy controllable source of energy (stored solar power). However, it's mainstream consumer consumption should decrease, assuming we have a better way of harnesing solar energy through either wind, water, or direct solar power. Otherwise, we will just be exchanging automotive gas consumption with point source generator crude consumption...
Not to be a downer, but over the years I have heard lots of promises regarding new battery technology. Sadly, none of it has lived up to its hype. Don't get me wrong, I would love to have a battery get a full charge that quickly, I just wouldn't get your hopes up quite yet.
thats not to say that battery tech hasnt improved over the years. Batteries are last much longer than they used to; we just keep finding faster ways to burn that energy.
This would be awesome.. i would just have to find a socket and plug my laptop in for 30 seconds and voila. Ofcourse i would have to wait a couple of years for it to get mainstream.. unless lenovo decides to start making them tomorrow.
Read this story on Fud two days ago.
Yeah, I was wondering why it took THG so long to post this. But better late and accurate than early and wrong.
Hey look another MIT breakthrough battery tech we won't see for another 10 years because the large battery producing corporations are making enough money keeping mainstream tech at a snail's pace. Stretch it out, it'll last longer. *eyeroll*
Just think of how advanced we could be if we used a resource-based economy rather than crippling progress without our money-based economy. Things like this would be incorporated into every day life much more quickly, rather than waiting years and years for a company to decide that it has made enough money stalling the old tech. Lose the money, change the incentive for humanity.
thats not to say that battery tech hasnt improved over the years. Batteries are last much longer than they used to; we just keep finding faster ways to burn that energy.
It has gotten somewhat better, but it's not advancing at the same rate in efficiency as PCS. All theses new 5-6 hour battery netbooks are the result of severely under powered components, or the effect of just putting a bigger and bigger battery on. Take HPs 12 hour battery laptop they keep boasting...has anyone actually seen that battery? It's a 12 cell mammoth.
Yep, i fear the the Man does not want us to have real breakthroughs in battery technology. I sure hope this one sees the light of day but we've been reading about similar technologies for ages and hardly any of them has had any impact in everyday usage of electronics.
Well, sometimes the technology is good, but the cost associated with it is terrible. They were saying they had hypercapacitive batteries a little while ago. But I have a feeling they would cost in the multi-thousand dollar range, for even small ones. There are very few applications for 24 hour batteries that cost as much as a car.
This might be different because it uses standard materials, and just changes the manufacturing process.
Does anyone else not see the fundamental flaw with this? Since energy cannot be created nor destroyed, to accomplish the same amount of work that a 100mA charge for 2 hours would do, you would have to charge at a rate of 12A for 1 minute to get the same effect. 10 Seconds? Do the math. I dont know of a small dainty wall adapter that can chug out 12A, let alone a small charging jack on a cell phone that could take several amps.
There already are two competing battery technologies that promises even shorter recharge time and they're already on the market.
Altairnano's lithium-titanate battery potentially offers 250 times faster recharge. Current models can be fully recharged in less than 10 minutes.
A123systems' lithium iron phosphate battery potentially offers 100 times faster recharge with current test models being recharged to 80% capacity in 5 minutes, and full capacity in 20 minutes.
Good possibilities. Of course there's a lot of ignorance when it comes to Lithium Ions from your general consumer. They tend to kill the batteries capacity by treating it like a NiMh.
"You mean I'm not supposed to drain it down all the way?"
No, no you're not.
Does anyone else not see the fundamental flaw with this? Since energy cannot be created nor destroyed, to accomplish the same amount of work that a 100mA charge for 2 hours would do, you would have to charge at a rate of 12A for 1 minute to get the same effect. 10 Seconds? Do the math. I dont know of a small dainty wall adapter that can chug out 12A, let alone a small charging jack on a cell phone that could take several amps.
Yes, but you could at least up it to standard wall amp-draw instead of the measly .5-2.5 amp draw for most AC-DC converters, which never have to be higher, because the batteries couldn't utilize that juice anyways.
Yes, but you could at least up it to standard wall amp-draw instead of the measly .5-2.5 amp draw for most AC-DC converters, which never have to be higher, because the batteries couldn't utilize that juice anyways.
Ok, so lets "up it to standard wall amp-draw" and now you're charging an iPod with....15 amps x 125 volts = 1875 watts. Yay! Now let's imagine what an iPod with a charging jack that could handle that...with charging circuiry to handle that current...Congrats your iPod is the size of a shoebox. Let's take it a step further....charging a notebook battery with 18v at 3a for an hour and a half....to get the same columbs charge you would need 18v at 16,200A for 10 seconds. Gets ugly fast, doesnt it? Hooray for physics. 10 seconds on really small batteries is probable.
Gasoline will never be 'history', because it is a phenominal distributed high energy controllable source of energy (stored solar power). However, it's mainstream consumer consumption should decrease, assuming we have a better way of harnesing solar energy through either wind, water, or direct solar power. Otherwise, we will just be exchanging automotive gas consumption with point source generator crude consumption...
Although what you say is true...
Never say never, one day, god knows when (50 years?)... Gasoline will be gone.
And that is what we are talking about, small batteries. Because you are going AC/DC you could step down the voltage to whatever is reasonable for a charge. Otherwise, you lights would dim every time you plugged something in to charge. Obveously, for a car, you would still need to trickle charge at home, but you could have power station nodes for 'quick fillups'.
And that is what we are talking about, small batteries. Because you are going AC/DC you could step down the voltage to whatever is reasonable for a charge. Otherwise, you lights would dim every time you plugged something in to charge. Obveously, for a car, you would still need to trickle charge at home, but you could have power station nodes for 'quick fillups'.
But they also mention laptop batteries. I personally dont consider a laptop battery small in the grand scheme of portable electronics. Even doing the math for small batteries like portable media players, cell phones, etc., your charging currents get high really quick if you try to turn a 1 hour charge time into a 10 second charge time even on something small like a cell phone.
Lol, I wouldn't care if the battery with charger was as big as an automotive battery (not as heavy but compared to size). I would go around, stealing people's power, dumping it into my home powergrid :3
Yes, but you could at least up it to standard wall amp-draw instead of the measly .5-2.5 amp draw for most AC-DC converters, which never have to be higher, because the batteries couldn't utilize that juice anyways.
Correct. A wall outlet can deliver 15 amps, although you'd need a dedicated line to get the full amount. The limiting factor will be the capacity of the connector. mavroxur is quite correct in saying it can't handle the full output of a wall outlet. If you think lithium batteries have heat problems...
However, move the technology to an electric vehicle and the situation changes. You can pump in the power at the full rate 14.2 wire can handle. ZENN Motors have already announced something along this line with their CityZENN car. It uses ultra-capacitors, not batteries, but the charging limits are the same. They project 5 minutes to fully charge it from a wall outlet.
Now if they can scale down ultra-capacitors to cell phone size...
Gasoline will never be 'history', because it is a phenominal distributed high energy controllable source of energy (stored solar power). However, it's mainstream consumer consumption should decrease, assuming we have a better way of harnesing solar energy through either wind, water, or direct solar power. Otherwise, we will just be exchanging automotive gas consumption with point source generator crude consumption...
Actually, switching to electric still makes sense even if you have to burn coal to produce the electricity. The problem is that gasoline engines are so incredibly inefficient compared with turbines that you can produce electricity remotely, accept transmission losses and conversion losses to store it in batteries then get it back out, and you'd still produce less greenhouse gas.
The advantages gasoline has are:
1) fast refuelling
2) a well-developed infrastructure to facilitate refuelling
3) compact storage allowing a vehicle to carry enough to travel long distances between refuelling.
However, we also have a well-developed electricity infrastructure. Moreover, most people rarely use the extended range that gasoline offers. Mainly they use the large tanks to minimize refuelling. Plugging your car into a garage outlet overnight eliminates the need to stop at gas stations but doesn't help when you've got a long trip to make.
Fast refuelling can make pit stops on long trips acceptable if you don't make too many long trips. However, the CityZENN's (ultra-capacitor based) projected range is similar to that of a gas powered vehicle, so it can go head-to-head with them. That's something that will take better batteries than even these improved lithium ones.
The electric car just became a reality.
Thanks Garydale for seeing my point. We could stop at electrical substations and plug in. They've got plenty of power.
Burning coal and using electricity produces 60% of the C02 of running a diesel engine in an automobile. Turbines are far more efficient.
If we built tons of nuclear plants and drove electric cars we'd have very little C02, or any air pollution for that matter. Nuclear fuel can be reprocessed and reused, we don't have to bury it underground. Jimmy Carter is at fault for the burying. They reprocess it all in France and it's a much better system.
All that said, I love cars and I love the sound of an ICE. I'll miss that when I buy an electric one day. Maybe I'll keep one for nostalgia.
Well, I just hope they can keep them from exploding during this rapid recharge.
Sweet... If it happens, it will be a much bigger step than the previous ones (NiCd -> NiMh -> Lithium Ion).
Thanks Garydale for seeing my point. We could stop at electrical substations and plug in. They've got plenty of power.Burning coal and using electricity produces 60% of the C02 of running a diesel engine in an automobile. Turbines are far more efficient. If we built tons of nuclear plants and drove electric cars we'd have very little C02, or any air pollution for that matter. Nuclear fuel can be reprocessed and reused, we don't have to bury it underground. Jimmy Carter is at fault for the burying. They reprocess it all in France and it's a much better system.All that said, I love cars and I love the sound of an ICE. I'll miss that when I buy an electric one day. Maybe I'll keep one for nostalgia.
Have to disagree on the nuclear option. Even if we could re-process fuel to use more of it, there is still a cost. Moreover, fissionable materials are a non-renewable resource. And so far nuclear is more expensive than wind and deep-heat geothermal. Moreover, spent fuel is expensive to store because it requires guarding against terrorists who could use it for dirty bombs.
Let's go with the more purely green sources. Nuclear is too much a trade off between devils.
I'm not expecting an overnight switch to electric. I'd by one today if they had one that met my needs (suitable for highway driving, range of 100km between charging, seats 4 and has cargo space). Basically I'm looking for an electric Toyota Corolla with possibly a more restricted range.
Since most recharging can be done overnight when power demand is lowest, there is no strain on the grid. Other conservation efforts which should be taking place concurrently should also be reducing power usage, so that there will be no real need to upgrade the grid specifically to handle electric vehicles.
My laptop battery from 2002 has had a good run, and still limping its way through a pointless existence. Maybe the new laptop that come with this tech (if it ever happens) will last 10 years past being considered outdated. One can only hope.