The below insight comes from Cornell Chronicle, a source of official news and part of Cornell University. The site publishes daily news about research, outreach, events, and the Cornell community. To read the full article, “Fast-charging lithium battery seeks to eliminate ‘range anxiety,’” by David Nutt, Cornell Chronicle, please click here.
A team at Cornell Engineering has developed a new lithium battery that can charge in under five minutes, currently faster than any such battery on the market. Most significantly, it does so while maintaining stable performance over extended cycles of charging and discharging.
The breakthrough could alleviate “range anxiety” among drivers who worry electric vehicles (EVs) cannot travel long distances without a time-consuming recharge.
“Range anxiety is a greater barrier to electrification in transportation than any of the other barriers, like cost and capability of batteries, and we have identified a pathway to eliminate it using rational electrode designs,” said Lynden Archer, Cornell’s James A. Friend Family Distinguished Professor of Engineering and dean of Cornell Engineering, who oversaw the project.
“If you can charge an EV battery in five minutes, I mean, gosh, you don’t need to have a battery that’s big enough for a 300-mile range. You can settle for less, which could reduce the cost of EVs, enabling wider adoption,” he added.
The team’s paper, “Fast-Charge, Long-Duration Storage in Lithium Batteries,” was published in Joule‘s January 16th issue. The lead author is Shuo Jin, a doctoral student in chemical and biomolecular engineering.
“Our goal was to create battery electrode designs that charge and discharge in ways that align with daily routine,” Jin said. “In practical terms, we desire our electronic devices to charge quickly and operate for extended periods. To achieve this, we have identified a unique indium anode material that can be effectively paired with various cathode materials to create a battery that charges rapidly and discharges slowly.”
Archer’s lab previously approached battery design by focusing on how ions move in electrolytes and crystallize at interfaces of metal anodes, then used this knowledge to manipulate the electrode morphology to make safer anodes for long-duration storage.
For their new lithium battery, the researchers took a different tack and focused on the kinetics of electrochemical reactions, specifically employing a chemical engineering concept termed the “Damköhler number.” This is essentially a measure of the rate at which chemical reactions occur, relative to the rate at which material is transported to the reaction site.
Identifying battery electrode materials with inherently fast solid-state transport rates — and low Damköhler numbers — helped the researchers pinpoint indium as an exceptionally promising material for fast-charging batteries.
The new study shows indium has two crucial characteristics as a battery anode:
- An extremely low migration energy barrier, which sets the rate at which ions diffuse in the solid state
- A modest exchange current density, related to the rate at which ions are reduced in the anode
The combination of those qualities – rapid diffusion and slow surface reaction kinetics — is essential for fast charging and long-duration storage.
This technology, paired with wireless induction charging on roadways, would shrink the size — and the cost — of batteries, making electric transportation a more viable option for drivers.
Filed Under: Technology News