Revolutionary Battery for Electric Cars and Smartphones – in Progress
Your tablet, laptop or smartphone was drained. You need to charge it to use it again. Then, you wait for at least two hours for your gadget to regain its power.
This is the usual scenario of every gadget owner out there. And whether we admit it or not, we have come to a time when we get tired and sick of waiting for the battery to charge up. But now, worry no more. There is already hope.
Heads up for the development of the new lithium ion battery. Researchers based at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, developed a breakthrough and super-fast charging battery that charges up to 70% for only 120 seconds. Not only that. Unlike the life span of current batteries available today, this discovery can last for over 20 years of use. Hence, this holds a revolutionary impact to the electric cars industry, smartphones and other modern technologies at hand.
How It Works
Traditionally, lithium-ion batteries is made up of graphite that is used for the negative pole or anode. Here in the newly-developed battery, a new gel material that is made from titanium dioxide is used.
Titanium dioxide is found in soil. It is usually used in sunscreen lotions and as a food additive. Although titanium dioxide is spherical in natural shape, the NTU researchers transformed it into tiny nanotubes. This makes the material thousand times thinner than the diameter that of a human hair. Thus, speeding up the chemical reactions and allowing for a very fast charging.
What makes it a Breakthrough
Here are the reasons why this innovation in energy storage is something to look forward to.
Super-Fast
It’s not only fast, its super-fast. For smartphones and tablets, the battery charges for only 2 minutes for up to 70%. This allows you to charge your gadget while you look for your keys and then you are good to go. It also helps to make the electric vehicles a more feasible option to conventional cars powered by fossil fuels as it allows drivers to charge in just 20 minutes for up to 50% full charge.
“Electric cars will be able to increase their range dramatically, with just five minutes of charging, which is on par with the time needed to pump petrol for current cars,” said Associate Professor Chen XiaodongProf Chen, the lead scientist of the study.
Long Life-Span
Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that are commonly used in smartphones, laptops, tablets and electric vehicles usually last for about 500 recharge cycles. This is equivalent to typical use of two to three years. With the new battery technology, electric vehicle drivers can also save tens of thousands for battery replacement costs.
Professor Chen further said, “Equally important, we can now drastically cut down the toxic waste generated by disposed batteries, since our batteries last ten times longer than the current generation of lithium-ion batteries.”
Abundant, Safe and Cheaper
Better than the current ones, new batteries are cheaper as titanium dioxide are abundant and readily available in soil. This technology is licensed by a company, currently, for subsequent productions.
This new battery innovation is set to be out in the market in the next 2 years.
