Posted on 03/31/2021 9:27:40 AM PDT by Red Badger
Scientists have made a massless structural battery 10 times better than before.
The battery cell performs well in structural and energy tests, with planned further improvements.
Structural batteries reduce weight and could revolutionize electric cars and planes.
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In groundbreaking new research, scientists have made a structural battery 10 times better than in any previous experiment.
What’s a structural battery, and why is it such a big deal? The term refers to an energy storage device that can also bear weight as part of a structure—like if the studs in your home were all batteries, or if an electric fence also held up a wall.
In the new paper, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology and KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden reveal how their “massless” structural battery works.
The main use case is for electric cars, where a literally massive amount of batteries take up a ton of room and don’t contribute to the actual structure of the car. In fact, these cars must be specially designed to carry the mass of the batteries. But what if the frame of the car could hold energy? “Due to their multifunctionality, structural battery composites are often referred to as ‘massless energy storage’ and have the potential to revolutionize the future design of electric vehicles and devices,” the researchers explain.
To make the new structural battery, the scientists layered a buffer glass “fabric” between a positive and negative electrode, then packed it with a space-age polymer electrolyte and cured it in the oven. What results is a tough, flat battery cell that conducts well and holds up to tensile tests in all directions.
The battery’s combined qualities (or “multifunctionality”) make it 10 times better than any previous massless battery—a project scientists have worked on since 2007.
Chalmers University of Technology writes in a press release:
“The battery has an energy density of 24 Wh/kg, meaning approximately 20 percent capacity compared to comparable lithium-ion batteries currently available. But since the weight of the vehicles can be greatly reduced, less energy will be required to drive an electric car, for example, and lower energy density also results in increased safety. And with a stiffness of 25 GPa, the structural battery can really compete with many other commonly used construction materials.” This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
The scientists say the next step is to improve the performance even more, replacing aluminum foil in the electrode with carbon fiber material and thinning out the separator. This could result in a battery that produces 75 Wh/kg of energy and 75 GPa of stiffness, setting more records for massless batteries and also greatly reducing their weight.
Besides electric cars, the study team mentions e-bikes, satellites, and laptops as technologies that could use massless batteries. There could be further applications that we don’t think of as electric at all today.
One of the most exciting potential uses is in aircraft, which scientists are struggling to turn electric because of the huge weight of existing battery tech. Regular airplanes as well as vertical take off and landing vehicles could turn electric by using massless batteries. They could even combine massless structural batteries with solar panels in order to store what they soak up for later use.
VIDEO AT LINK...........................
As an emergency first responder in my earlier career, I wonder how this proposal deals with what would be needed when you have to cut off the roof of a car to free trapped occupants? This article doesn’t appear to address that.
You do not want to be running a K-saw through large, heavily charged battery arrays, power cords or anything carrying the amount of juice these things contain. It’s already a hazard with existing electric and hybrid vehicles.
I will be rich when I finish my AC battery and monopole magnets.
I would assume that this structural battery would be of low voltage and not as big a danger as the huge power packs and +400 volt systems are....................
They worked. Peol,People, just didn’t know how to use them properly. I do and I’m not telling
I fully admit to not having read the piece, and I don’t intend to. It just doesn’t interest me that much. However the first thing that came to my mind was if the battery is part of the structure of the vehicle what happens when the battery wears out?
I would also wonder what the repercussions of getting in a serious accident would be. People do wreck cars all the time
An electric car without battery weight would improve range by a lot.
Allow it to get a full charge in 3 minutes, or embed high efficiency solar into paint....and that would be a game changer. Build a home from this stuff...and it starts changing the world,
So do bullet holes short out the battery?...asking for a friend...and a parking lot fender bender ought to be spectacular...
Pretty soon, even the PAINT on the car will be a battery!...............
Let’s see an emergency responder take the jaws of life to such a car? They already have to be careful about cutting thru a power bus, but the entire vehicle, save maybe the glass, would now be off-limits.
Cheap and reliable energy will literally change the world. It empties the cities. It makes deserts live able. It desalinated water. It reduces transportation to the cost of the truck or vehicle.
Stuff like this will rule the late 21st century. We will be dead and gone...but that’s ok.
I want my flying car, dammit!...................
And where they gonna get all of that molasses?
I am assuming the structural battery will be low voltage and not the only battery or the primary battery......................
Excellent question!
Reading the article, it sounds like the opposite it true. Which is the whole idea of the concept to start with. It would not surprise me much if this aspect was not considered, or perhaps this article doesn’t want to mention that particular drawback. Or both.
Puerto Rico and Cuba?.................
Are charge times expanded or reduced? Would the gel battery concept improve the milliamp hours? If used in a plane, would electric storms from weather threaten the functionality?
The pulled it off and built a better mouse trap.
Lithium is no longer necessary.
The Red Chinese will not like that one bit, since they control the worlds supply lithium.
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