Posted on 04/20/2016 2:50:04 PM PDT by Red Badger
UCI chemist Reginald Penner (shown) and doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai have developed a nanowire-based technology that allows lithium-ion batteries to be recharged hundreds of thousands of times. Credit: Daniel A. Anderson / UCI
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University of California, Irvine researchers have invented nanowire-based battery material that can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times, moving us closer to a battery that would never require replacement. The breakthrough work could lead to commercial batteries with greatly lengthened lifespans for computers, smartphones, appliances, cars and spacecraft.
Scientists have long sought to use nanowires in batteries. Thousands of times thinner than a human hair, they're highly conductive and feature a large surface area for the storage and transfer of electrons. However, these filaments are extremely fragile and don't hold up well to repeated discharging and recharging, or cycling. In a typical lithium-ion battery, they expand and grow brittle, which leads to cracking.
UCI researchers have solved this problem by coating a gold nanowire in a manganese dioxide shell and encasing the assembly in an electrolyte made of a Plexiglas-like gel. The combination is reliable and resistant to failure.
The study leader, UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai, cycled the testing electrode up to 200,000 times over three months without detecting any loss of capacity or power and without fracturing any nanowires. The findings were published today in the American Chemical Society's Energy Letters.
Hard work combined with serendipity paid off in this case, according to senior author Reginald Penner.
"Mya was playing around, and she coated this whole thing with a very thin gel layer and started to cycle it," said Penner, chair of UCI's chemistry department. "She discovered that just by using this gel, she could cycle it hundreds of thousands of times without losing any capacity."
"That was crazy," he added, "because these things typically die in dramatic fashion after 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cycles at most."
The researchers think the goo plasticizes the metal oxide in the battery and gives it flexibility, preventing cracking.
"The coated electrode holds its shape much better, making it a more reliable option," Thai said. "This research proves that a nanowire-based battery electrode can have a long lifetime and that we can make these kinds of batteries a reality."
And twice as less heavy!
Thanks Red Badger.
Maybe this has application with solar panels, which degrade and fail at a disheartening rate given the expense and length of time required for them pay out.
I am wondering if some version of this technology could be used in high radiation environments. If it could, it would be useful for satellites by protecting them against solar flares. Maybe even robots to service and repair the inside of a nuke power plant.
What goes on with this stuff. I read maybe three years ago that someone had a created a cell phone charger than could charge your phone in SECONDS!!
But it still takes an hour.
Gas batteries will also be a huge next step as it will make batteries a lot lighter. power to weight would be tremendous and they will charge a lot faster too.
Fun to ponder what unimaginable technologies and breakthroughs lie in the centuries ahead. We might be looked upon as we look at cave dwellers.
exciting stuff....but where will the charging power come from, surely not wind generators or solar????
All well and good with the promising vastly increased charge cycle lifespan.
As to the fragility solution, did I miss field testing in trucks and such?
How long does it take to charge per KWH?
Paging Elon Musk, you might actually be able to build a car that can really go places.
Charging is ok but what is the load rate and the storage life? Those are more importany
That’s what I was thinking. Have they made a charger for it yet?
I’m in the process of inventing a ‘perpetual motion gas powered battery’
The concept it that you fill the battery up with gasoline, creates runs an electricity producing output, which inturn turns the excess electricity into steam through a process of solid oxide electrolyser cells (http://www.cnet.com/news/miracle-tech-turns-water-into-fuel/), which gets funneled back into the battery through a process of electricity generation run by steam
I’ve gotta work out a few bugs, but stay tuned for the world’s first perpetual motion machine/perpetual energy production device to finally be a reality
[[Charging is ok but what is the load rate and the storage life?]]
Storage life is 40 minutes- unfortunately there is a massive leech they can’t track down
Not much of a battery then. Won’t provide much under load
But now if you cover them with manganese oxide and this gel then maybe you can't line up so many in the same space.
How big will the battery now be? Will it fill the entire trunk if you want to go a reasonable distance before recharge?
I have a lithium ion chainsaw. Needs electricity to charge it now, and the charge doesn’t last long.
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