Future of Batteries May Be 3-D

 

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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Wellington unveils new EV charger as New Zealand looks to a bright electric future

New Zealand's capital city Wellington unveiled its first public electric vehicle charger this month, as it aims to kickstart its fledgling electric transportation market.

The city, already the first in New Zealand to trial production electric cars in the form of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, now has a 15-amp charging post available to anybody on the cortner of Customhouse Quay and Whitmore Street.

The charger, which is free to use to the public, is a signal of the growing appeal of electric vehicles, which are most associated with places such as Tokyo and California but are now becoming available around the world.

Although there are reportedly only a "handful" of electric vehicles on the streets of Wellington, the Mitsubishi i and Nissan LEAF are both set to hit New Zealand in 2012, where they are expected to draw the same attention they have done in Japan, the US and Europe.

Mitsubishi is already known as something of a green name in the country -- it's a long-term partner of the Zealandia eco-tourism attraction, a 225-hectare living ark which opened last year to showcase the world as it was "the day before humans arrived."

Last year, it provided five i-MiEV models to the city for a trial involving authorities and the New Zealand Post, similar to the larger trials being conducted across neighboring Australia.

Unlike other electric vehicle markets, which often use fossil fuels to generate the electricity used for charging cars, New Zealand boasts an excellent alternative energy infrastructure of wind turbines and hydroelectricity installations.

In 2009, researchers said the the unique capability of electric vehicles to store and discharge power while they are plugged in and not used, effectively making them large batteries, could greatly increase the efficiency of the New Zealand power grid in the future by storing unused energy and providing it back when it was most needed.

For a country which produces roughly 70 percent of its electricity renewably, Wellington's single new charge point could be the start of something very big in indeed.

Read more: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/4786249/Mayor-amped-about-charging-post

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Hybrid Electric Vehicles Are the Future of the Auto Industry

With the rise in the price of gasoline, more and more people are taking interest in electric vehicles as means of transport. Another major advantage of electrically operated vehicles is that these vehicles offer pollution free means of transportation. Therefore even if 70% of people start using an electrically powered vehicle, we will be free of global warming caused by emission of gases like CO and CO2. There will be almost no instances of cancer caused by pollution.

Electric vehicles are more energy efficient than the contemporary vehicles wherein the electric vehicles operates at approximately 47 percent of effectiveness, while a contemporary vehicle operates at about 19 percent only.

But the electric car which can truly replace a traditional car is still in the conceptual stage as the electric vehicle would need continuous electric power from the batteries. The major disadvantages of present day electric cars are the time period required for recharging the batteries and their limited range

Now, it has almost been a century since the electric car has been popularly discussed, but recent developments in the hybrid electric vehicles technology and the growing concerns for the environment has revived the drive for an hybrid electric vehicles and this has become a realization today

Due to this problem of recharging batteries, a new type of design conceptualized in the minds of researchers and they came out with a solution. The researchers have put forward a new electrical vehicle fitted with on board electric power storage system and means of generating power. The generated power would be stored in the storage system and would be used to drive the vehicle. This new type of vehicle is called hybrid electric vehicle or HEV.

The present day storage system in hybrid electric vehicle comprises of stack of lead acid batteries as these can be charged in parallel with the load. The generating system consists of electric generator powered by internal combustion engine.

Researchers are optimistic about the performance of the hybrid vehicles. They are sure that the hybrid electric vehicle or HEV will be far more fuel efficient than the traditional vehicle powered by internal combustion engine.

Yantra Vidya is a electrical engineer.

For more information, please visit the Hybrid Cars Online Resource website by clicking on the following web link:

http://hybridcars.110mb.com