The future of electric vehicle batteries may be 3-D.
Researchers at Colorado State University have developed a battery with a three-dimensional interior architecture that uses copper nanowires to store twice as many lithium ions as conventional lithium-ion batteries. Team leader Amy Prieto, pictured with her students, says the prototype, about the size of a cellphone battery, could recharge in about 12 minutes.
They’re still a long way from building anything capable of powering an automobile, but the prototype suggests we might one day see electric vehicles recharge in minutes, not hours.
“It’s going to take a new generation of batteries to do so, and we hope our 3-D battery is poised to be at the forefront,” Prieto said in a statement. “If our battery works to its potential, it could be the ideal battery for an electric car.”
The 3-D battery features a fundamental change to the interior of lithium-ion batteries.
Conventional batteries feature a graphite anode (negative electrode) and lithium cathode (positive electrode) separated by electrolyte. The electrodes are arranged in thin layers. Lithium ions move from the anode to the cathode during discharge, then back again when recharging. That configuration accounts for some of the technology’s drawbacks: Long recharge time, limited lifespan and a propensity of overheating.
Prieto’s team reconfigured the battery architecture to address those drawbacks. They replaced the graphite anode with copper antimonide nanowires 1/50,000th the diameter of a human hair. The nanowires have enormous surface area, relatively speaking, and can store twice as many lithium ions as the same amount of graphite. They also are more chemically stable and heat resistant.
The prototype battery is about the size of a cellphone battery. The nanowires are arranged in a structure resembling the bristles of a hairbrush. In the final configuration, they will be coated with electrolyte and surrounded with lithium. Lab tests showed the prototype should recharge in as little as 12 minutes, not the two hours typical for cellphone batteries of the same size.
Prieto has founded a company, Prieto Battery, to commercialize the technology, which she says could be available within two years. She presented her findings Wednesday at the 241st National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
Photo: Colorado State University
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