Charge Your Batteries In 10 Minutes, Thanks To Researchers At CalTech | TechTree.com

Charge Your Batteries In 10 Minutes, Thanks To Researchers At CalTech

A new type of 3D silicon anode turbocharges the lethargic lithium-ion battery in your phone.

 

Researchers at the University of California have developed a new architecture for lithium-ion battery anodes that could make for charging of portable electronics in as little as ten minutes. The most common type of battery used in modern-day electronics, current lithium-ion batteries take hours to achieve full charge.

Scientists at the Riverside Bourns College of Engineering have developed the new three-dimensional, silicon-decorated, cone-shaped carbon-nanotube cluster architecture for lithium ion battery anodes. Their use wouldn't just revolutionise electronics, but also electric and hybrid vehicles.

Currently the most commonly used anode in lithium-ion cells is made of graphite. However, by replacing them with silicon anodes, the researchers claim that there will be a 63 per cent increase of total cell capacity and 40 per cent reduction in weight.

Moreover, the use of silicon anodes made for ultra-fast charge and discharge rates, some nearly 16 times faster than traditional lithium-ion batteries. It is yet to be seen if such technologies can be easily implemented in batteries or are still far too expensive to justify the benefits.

Use of the technology in electronics could be the first step to its mass scale adoption, as the batteries required to power our phones and tablets are pretty tiny. In cars on the other hand, a significant portion of its weight and even bigger chunk of its cost are taken up by batteries, and an expensive technology will be a dead end.

The report was published as a study in the journal SMALL.


TAGS: Lithium-ion Battery, fast charging, technology, electronics

 
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