I can't find this referenced or any links anywhere, but a chap from a US university was on R4 this morning claiming to have designed a battery, using existing chemical technology, but a "revised" internal structure, which can be charged to full capacity in "a couple of minutes", and can be used in any application, including cars. Capacity isn't improved, but recharge times are transformed.
This, in theory, would allow an electric car to pull into a forecourt and 'refuel' in minutes, much as you can with an internal combustion engine. If it's true, it will remove one of the biggest barriers to electric car use. Now they just need to be able to generate the electricity cleanly.
As it's not yet April 1st, I presume this is not a wind up. Did anyone else hear this article, and what did you make of it?
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Use Google news to find the links. A quote from one article is:
In the end, the team created a NiMH battery that was able to deliver 75% of the normal capacity of the battery in only 2.7 seconds and it took only 20 seconds to get the battery to 90% capacity. Apparently, a production scale battery would be able to hit 75% capacity in a minute and 90% within two minutes.
news.google.co.uk/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=uk&hl=en&q=battery+fast+charging+illinois
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Thanks, Crankcase. I'm normally pretty good with Google, but I struggled with this one.
If it really is as it seems, this is properly exciting stuff IMHO.
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I know what you mean - Google news often seems to do better than "ordinary" Google at digging out this kind of stuff.
Trouble with the actual "invention" is, as always with these things, it all looks great in the lab, then it goes quiet, and then they say it might hit production in thirty years if they can just get over the (insert problem here).
Bit like nuclear fusion.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Mon 28 Mar 11 at 10:41
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Before you get too excited, I think that they have only managed cell phone batteries so far!
Recharging a car 16Kwh battery in 2 minutes is going to need pretty thick cables! If you live on the same street to couple of owners get used to brown outs!
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If it really were two minutes, then that's comparable to filling up with liquid fuel as we have it, so we can go back to charging at a "petrol" station rather than at home. Just shove a substation round the back of the BP.
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Just shove a substation round the back of the BP.
More like a mini nuclear power station! Assuming that you wish to fuel say 10 cars at the same time in 2minutes!
I will let NC do the arithmetic, incase I have added some zeros in error - the numbers look rather large!
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I got to 5 Megawatts before I backed off!
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Dont forget the generating capacity for the rechargeable busses trains and trucks. :-)
Japan had blackouts when they lost a small proportion of their capacity to generate power even though they were not supplying the devastated towns. We are running near our limit now.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Mon 28 Mar 11 at 11:55
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Could be good for KERS systems.
For larger capacity batteries I would imagine a capacitor based system that stores electricity over time from the grid and than discharges it quickly to charge one of these type of batteries.
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Most electric cars have a range of 100 miles. For this, I need 10 litres of diesel. Assuming 40% efficiency on the diesel this is 4 litres for the actual driving. Assume 90% efficient on the electric, so requires 4.44 litres equivalent of diesel. Diesel contains 39 MJ/l, so energy required = 173 MJ. Transfer that in 60 seconds, requires an energy transfer rate of 2.883 MJ / s = 2.89 MW. For that sort of load, we'd be looking at an 11kV supply - and I wouldn't want to be the one switching it on or off!!!
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This is a very interesting development.
Effectively, it means that the batteries are no longer going to be the bottleneck in terms of charging rate.
That the battery must have a very low internal resistance is also very helpful for their power delivery onboard the vehicle.
While the batteries being looked at are only small at the moment, it's important to realise that most EV batteries are assembled from strings of D size batteries (or similar common size formats), so, the scaling is acheived purely by numbers of cells rather than in any inherent change in format or package.
I *imagine* that the technology breakthrough is in maximising the area of the plates available for chemical reaction using very small structures, and in principle, this idea could be applied to to other types of battery.
One way for this to play out is by making very rapid charging quite expensive, in order to pay for the required infrastructure, while allowing people to trickle charge on the cheap.
Does charging need to come down to 2 minutes in order to be compettitve? Perhaps if it reduces to the time taken to stop at the services for a quick break and a brew, that would enough?
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>> Does charging need to come down to 2 minutes in order to be compettitve? Perhaps
>> if it reduces to the time taken to stop at the services for a quick
>> break and a brew, that would enough?
I think a lot of people - myself included - would be much happier to tolerate an electric vehicle's compromised range of, say, 75-100 miles, if one could pull over and 'top up' in a similar ballpark time to that required to fill a tank with petrol or diesel.
I'm reminded of the road trip the BBC took recently in an electric Mini. The combination of limited range and slow recharge time turned what would be a routine trip in an IC powered car, into a logistical nightmare. The ability to do a quick roadside recharge would go a long way to outweighing the inconvenience of the limited range.
Of course, a 500 mile range and a 2 minute recharge would be nirvana. :-) But this development would seem to me to go a long way to overcoming the most serious barriers to ownership of electric cars. Assuming it goes in to development of course.
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I think when a mobile phone or laptop battery will go a month between charges there may be a hint of progress.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Mon 28 Mar 11 at 14:12
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>> I think when a mobile phone or laptop battery will go a month between charges
>> there may be a hint of progress.
>>
Precisely. It is that point alone and only that point that makes the ownership of a Smartphone totally illogical from my point of view. Nice toys but expensive and having to recharge them virtually every night makes them a complete no go for me.
Unfortunately I won't be around long enough to see a Smartphone or whatever supersedes them, have a worthwhile battery life of, say, at least a week between charges.
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Oldgit, it depends what you do with the smartphone and how it's set up. I only occasionally go online with, and when I do it's only for a short period. Other than that I've got wireless and 3G turned off, and I can go 4-5 days between charges. OK, that's mostly on standby as I don't call/text much either, but if you're a light user they're OK for battery life. Mine's a Nokia N8.
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>> Oldgit, it depends what you do with the smartphone and how it's set up. I
>> only occasionally go online with, and when I do it's only for a short period.
>> Other than that I've got wireless and 3G turned off, and I can go 4-5
>> days between charges. OK, that's mostly on standby as I don't call/text much either, but
>> if you're a light user they're OK for battery life. Mine's a Nokia N8.
>>
If it was a car would you switch off the aircon, heater, radio, lights, wipers, etc ? If you did it would still not go far anyway.
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That's pretty fair ON. I could well get by without a smartphone, given that fact I don't use its features much. It came to me free, but I'd be happy going back to a more simple device.
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My Nokia 3720 is virtually indestructible and with light use goes a couple of weeks on a charge. It would still make a crap car battery, we need a dramatic improvement in battery technology, which should have happened by now if it is possible, and even if we had the improvement we don't have the electricity generating infrastructure to support it.
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Please believe me, I love my toys and would love to be able to justify, say, £25/mth for a smartphone on contract but am put off by the fact that I'd need to turn off all those things plus auto syncing etc.
Alternatively I could have one on PAYG but then you have to top up with about £15/mth in order to access the internet.
No, I'll resist the temptation and keep my nearly new Nokia 'standard' phone with 3G but that's cost £1/day to access the internet on PAYG.
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Battery breakthrough announced on R4 this morning - Crankcase
