Scientists discover batteries recharging in seconds
Scientists at MIT have developed a new design for lithium batteries that could cut recharge times down to seconds. Traditional lithium batteries dispense power slowly, but also charge slowly because of perceived limitations in the lithium itself. However, the team at MIT found that the problem lies not in the lithium, but in the substrate around it, according to a paper (PDF) published in Nature. The team, led by Gerbrand Ceder, the Richard P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and Byoungwoo Kang, a graduate student in materials science and engineering, has created a battery that can be fully charged and discharged in under 20 seconds.
“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 concluded in the paper. The team believe that the new technology could be available in two or three years, because it is based around the commonly used lithium battery.
Source: Vnunet
Comments(50)
Good that's what is called a discovery.
but u know the damn government will buy it out so quick so it never hit the market
Cool,
could be great for quick top ups but needs an insane charger for anything other than a cell phone.
Wow that really is amazing, would be awesome to just snap my battery charger on my cell phone and have it charged up in seconds, imagine the savings on your electricity bill to not having to charge your laptop and other devices but for more then a few seconds. Looking forward to hearing more about this technology.
You don't save electricity, you still need the very same amonth of electicity most likely to charge the battery even if it takes 1 hour vs a few seconds.
I can pretty much only see this for one mayor function thought in the future, the return of electric cars, before it took to long time to "refuel" them but with this I bet it can be as short as a minute.
Thank Obama for findings like this, without him green solutions like this would not be possible. Under the Bush regime research of this type was banned as unnecessary.
@6
Lol you guys are silly
czechs invented some nano technology, when for example notebooks or mobile phones are covered with sheeting, unvisible ofcourse, which is recharging by itself:)
excuse my terrible english
Yak, yak, yak.
In last 3 years I've seen at least 20 different "promises" for new battery technologies. This one is nothing more then one of these.
this would be huge for electric cars. especially if they can get the batteries to last longer. if they could get the mileage up and the charging time down to a few minutes it would be more practical and people would actually consider buying one.
Still useles because most of the energy is lost in the grid, so electric cars are useless.
Hydrogen all the way baby.
Duckhead.
tsssssssss
some old alien technology thats been around for ages and now humans go crazy about this,
its like allmost all technology thats discovered in area 51, now the goverment neads money and will release and sell this old stuff one at a time,
how about if obama when he is informed about the secrets the goverment is hiding would have some guts and give us invisibility, eternal life at once instead of keeping the good stuff for them selfes
Surely this will land into the hands of oil rich nations? so petrol cars will still be sold…. ?
“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,” – Just for clarification, the battery doesn't discharge in seconds right, cuz that would make this pretty useless.
It's all pretty irrelevant, since there's a worldwide lithium shortage – Lithium mining companies have already admitted they don't have enough raw materials to supply lithium-battery cars for the UK, never mind the world.
Of course, they could find more deposits, but they're usually in such remote places they have to mine huge seams to turn a profit.
So all in all, until someone makes a nano-builder that can replicate materials (or alchemy comes on leaps and bounds), these new batteries are pretty useless.
this will newer see the light of day
at 5: electric cars have lithium batteries?
@11 Duckhead
You truly are a duckhead!!! "Hydrogen all the way baby" – hydrogen is an old news that been proven useless. We simply cant produce hydrogen efficient enough. It would only be competitive if gas goes up to 15 dollars per gallon. On top of it even if whole world start producing hydrogen it would not be enough to power USA alone. Useless. The only reason politicians trow word hydrogen around is to have a place to reroute money into their pockets. It's a dead idea, read some research papers by actual scientists before buying into hype.
As far as batteries, its an interesting idea if its true. Grids will loose energy, but if we build nuclear power stations we can have more cheap electricity.
agree with 10, especially within new E-Cars, this is a real discovery
Electric cars DO have lithium batteries. Some others have NiMH Batteries
Yeah I'm with #10 too.
Charging portable devices is already big, imagine charging a laptop in a minute.
But if this would work for cars it would be a sensation.
Cause then electric cars could have "gas stations" too.
I like sports cars but for driving in a city or so, an electric car wouldn't bother me.
One day when they find out how fusion works, hydrogen will be the new carrier for energy.
Fossil fuels are done, they will be obsolete sooner or later.
Obama will bring greener cars to the masses, and is already stepping forward with groundbreaking research into cheaper more earth friendly power sources. Obama is truly a savior when it comes to saving this planet, and his energy ideas are plain old genius. Within the next few years we will all be able to afford cheap mass produced cars that run on electricity, and cars that run on gas will be thought of as primitive obsolete machines.
@14 Goob – The discharge in seconds refers to the charger's ability to completely discharge the battery before recharging it again to retain life.
@12 Hg wells – Don't forget to put on your tinfoil hat. Just be careful, I knew a space cadet like you once, he's in the looney bin now.
I think no matter what man makes or does, He will end up destroying himself and the planet no matter what. Batteries still have a lifespan and need replacing, Thus get thrown away (How many people do you know who recycle a few duracells/car batteries etc?) So where is the sense in going forward with this? In my opinion, We have to go back to go forward. Think about it.
@6
Yeah, Obama has only 76 of over 1000 appointments made, but he has time to make MIT students make a sudden discovery in the last 50+ days.
Try not to reproduce, ever. We already have our quota for people like you.
we know how fusion works, we just cannot properly contain plasma… there probably dozens of experimental fusion reactors tokamaks mostly(?), but still more energy put in then gets out. they're now working on a big one (Iter)
there're projects like: recovering pure zink from ore and getting hydrogen from water and zink all using solar power…
Obama is just one visible(y?) leading man of the show.
If you charge fast = u consume less, if only because of R
these batteries are nice indeed. all we need now is cold fusion and room-temperature superconductors:)
I think the most astounding thing about all this is the fact that (as the title says) 'Scientists discover batteries regarching'. They didnt figure it out themselves.. just found some that were already working
woah, this is great news! havnt seen any significant improvement in batteries since lithium-ion. Hopefuly this turs out to be more than vapour, unlike most "discoveries" in battery technology.
next on the list: wireless power ;p
Why do idiots come to this site and try to turn everything into a political debate?! Just stay on topic and *try* to post an intellectual comment. Go to the political or religious forums if you want to spew about those topics!!
they had something for this a while back. i think it was called CIALIS!
why do you call they idiots
i'm pretty sure many sciencists here, they need free movies..
download the article+supplementary..
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=N3IO0TDT
As I said in comment 15, you're all missing the point that Li-ion batteries are useless for cars (and most other consumer appliances) in the long term…
Source:
http://www.meridian-int-res.com/Projects/Lithium_Microscope.pdf
"
1. This report confirms our previous assessment that realistically achievable Lithium Carbonate production will be sufficient for only a small fraction of future PHEV and EV global market requirements, that demand from the portable electronics sector will absorb much of the planned production increases in the next decade and that other battery technologies that use unconstrained resources should be developed for the mass automotive market.
2. This report shows that the major economically recoverable Lithium Brine Reserves are lower than previously estimated at only 4 million tonnes of Lithium.
3. This report confirms that mass production of Lithium Carbonate is not environmentally sound, it will cause irreparable ecological damage to ecosystems that should be protected and that LiIon propulsion is incompatible with the notion of the “Green Car”.
4. This report confirms that the highly focused geographical concentration of Lithium production will exacerbate the already strained geopolitical relations between Latin America and the USA.
"
The best rechargeable batteries (AA & AAA) on the market are 'Eneloop' made by SANYO. Because they discharge so slowly, they last MUCH longer than ordinary rechargeables.
http://www.eneloop.info/home/general-description.html
Quantum dot photovoltaic cells > quick charging batteries
You don't have to thank Obama for this. You have to thank the SMART students at MIT Students like Byoungwoo Kang.
Thanking obama is just as silly as thanking yourself for other ppl accomplishments!
Thank you for typing my message and thank me for reading it!
LOL
without somebody developing a way to limit the discharge the batteries are useless, it would only fry what ever you put into it….only use would be maybe camera flash or a bomb like we havent herd about that enough lately….its a dead science already
ZPM's that's what we need ……Zero point Modules but you REALLY need to control their discharge to be viable.
Just out of curiosity how many of you battery/resource development experts on here actually bothered to read the published research paper?
Some people need to learn to talk less and listen/read more.
.. I'm optimistic but not holding my breath on this one. Being an avid electric r/c flyer, we've been promised 10x charge lipo's for years.. closest we have are 2x now.
However, the discharge rates have climbed quickly from 1C to over 30x batery capacity. But still having to wait an hour to recharge a battery really suxors!
@ dumdedumdumdum i hope there will be enough lithium for the nutjobs out there!
Nicolai Tesla probably jotted this down on some notes.
does anyone can upload the paper??
This isn't news. All they did was turn a battery into a capacitor.
@dg
"3…Li-Ion propulsion is incompatible with the notion of the “Green Car”."
I sure did, did you?
Or how about this one from three years ago:
http://action.pluginamerica.org/o/2711/images/World-Lithium-Resource-Impact-on-Electric-Vehicles-v1.doc
"The argument that there is enough lithium or not enough lithium is, in a way, not the point. The concept of switching our current lifestyle from complete dependence on one resource to complete dependence on another is absurd and untenable. Clouds and eclipses may block the sun, droughts reduce water supply, the wind may become more erratic in speed, the earth's resources will begin to dry up. No source of energy we have yet harnessed is completely self renewing and perpetual and to build a one-size fits all solution from a molecule of lithium is narrowing and perpetuates the problem. "
Bottom line: NOT the super-duper environmental panacea a lot of people here seem to think.
@5 you don't save "electricity", you save ELECTRIC ENERGY! by your logic if you use your computer for 2 hours a day you will pay the same on your eletric bill as if you were using it for 10 hours a day.
let's say that a lithium chargers power consumption (P) is 70W, if you charge your battery for 2 hours, the energy (E=P.t, t=time) you use will be => E = 70×2 => E = 140Wh,
now if the battery charges in 20 seconds (0,00555 hours):
E = 70×0,00555 => E = 0.388Wh
these are just estimates, i don't have any data on what charger they used or any specific details on the battery, etc…
but you will definitely save energy.
@dumdedumdumdum It's funny that you took offense to my remarks as it was in no way directed at you. I'm actually on the same side as you…in a way
I was merely pointing out that so many people rant about how these is great this is or those that piss all over it and say hydrogen is better and Obama is the worlds slavation, yet contribute nothing to the discussion in ways of facts. You have done that and generally cited it…
perhaps you are too quick to be on the defensive
This is'nt that new lithium titanate batteries have been around for over a year now. There's even an electric car using it (lightning GT) that claims to charge fully in 10 mins
@44 why would you assume that (P) would stay the same for a 2second charge? your still cramming the same amount of juice into the batteries wether it takes a day or 2 seconds.
Goodenough et al researched LiFePO4 cathodes as far back as 1996, Sony improved on the concept using carbon to increase the conductivity and ease Li+ ion motion in 2000. Although the current research is not exactly new, the result in the charge/discharge is excellent because the problem with petrol heads is that they want acceleration and speed.
Li ion batteries do not suffer from the memory effect so you do not need to discharge them completely before recharging (NiMH you do).
You will only save energy in charging/discharging faster from less heat being lost. The energy stored in the battery is the same as before, it just gets stored faster.
The main problem will be the actual voltage achieved via the Fe2+/Fe3+ couple. If you have higher voltage with similar capacity to current batteries your overall energy density is greater. Having an electrolyte that can withstand that voltage has always been a problem. I assume they have overcome this also.
No point in crapping on about hydrogen if it is produced by electrolysis. That takes electricity and if you are producing that via thermal power stations they are just as inefficient as a combustion engine and always will be thanks to the limitations of the carnot cycle.
For that matter, same problem with charging batteries, no point having zero emission vehicles if they are charged on power stations burning coal.
Solar is still far too expensive, nobody wants wind and wave in their back yards and they can only contribute up to 25% total of any national grid due to the inconsistency of the turbines (compared to hydro where it is a controlled steady rate).
As a greeny I hate to admit it but nuclear is the most likely answer.
@11
Hydrogen is made with electricity. It's nothing but a pathetic attempt to perpetuate our reliance on the current petrol infrastructure
The disparaging information about hydrogen above is out of date. Scientists at MIT including Daniel Nocera have created an inexpensive way to turn water into hydrogen and oxygen, filling fuel cells in small quantities, non-centralized, room temperature, and inexpensive materials. This is not ready for industrial production yet, but don't rule out small solar hydrogen fuel cell machines in your own home, running your car and your house.
if they can come out with a cell that can charge up in seconds that means i can use that to power my hydrogen fuel cell and be able to charge it faster then i can use the power this is good for many things looks good but the government may but a stop to this they did with stan myers?