The only downside is you need four people to get maximum results.
Posted on 05/23/2026 6:44:41 PM PDT by Red Badger
The battery retained 76 percent capacity after 500 consecutive six-minute charging cycles.
Charging an electric vehicle fast without degrading the battery has been one of the harder problems in battery research. A team at Adelaide University says it has a way through it.
Six minutes. That is how long it took their new battery cell to reach 85 percent charge, while delivering an energy density of 240.4 watt-hours per kilogram.
The result comes from a team led by Professor Shi-Zhang Qiao, an ARC Industry Laureate Fellow in the University’s School of Chemical Engineering, working alongside researchers from Imperial College London.
Why fast charging has been hard to crack The issue with existing high-capacity batteries, silicon-anode and lithium-anode types, is that speed comes at a cost. Capacity fades quickly, and fast charging generates heat that accelerates that degradation and raises safety concerns.
“Current models also increase heat generation during fast charging, which can exacerbate battery degradation and safety risks,” Professor Qiao said. “Until now, achieving more than 90 per cent charge within 10 minutes without sacrificing energy density and cycle life has been a formidable challenge.”
Standard approaches involve reworking the electrolyte — the medium ions travel through inside the cell. But changes to the electrolyte affect the whole system and tend to compromise ionic conductivity elsewhere.
What this approach does instead Rather than modifying the electrolyte throughout, Qiao’s team targeted only the electrode surface. The method uses sulfur vacancies as catalytic sites that attract specific anions to the battery interface during charging, promoting the formation of a compact, lithium fluoride-rich protective layer (the solid electrolyte interphase) with fast lithium-ion transport pathways built into it.
“The catalytic sites on the electrode surface attract anions to the battery interface and promote the formation of a robust inorganic protective layer, which is critical for fast charging and long-term stability,” Professor Qiao said. “Unlike traditional electrolyte engineering, which often affects the entire electrolyte system, this strategy regulates reactions only at the interface, allowing fast charging without sacrificing ionic conductivity.”
The silicon anode achieved an average coulombic efficiency — how much charge put in can be drawn back out — of approximately 99.94 percent. At 10 minutes, the cells reached 91.4 percent.
How it held up over time After 500 consecutive six-minute charge cycles, the cells retained around 76 percent of their original capacity.
“Our test cell exhibited excellent performance, achieving about 76 percent capacity retention after 500, six-minute cycles,” Professor Qiao said in a press release. “The cells also exhibited excellent stability at 10 minutes of charging. The discovery could help enable electric vehicles that charge in minutes without sacrificing battery life or energy density.”
The team’s next step is scaling the technology and testing it under real operating conditions. Their findings are published in Nature Energy.
Dear FRiends,
We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers.
If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today:
Click here: to donate by Credit Card
Or here: to donate by PayPal
Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794
Thank you very much and God bless you,
Jim
“...their new battery cell to reach 85 percent charge, while delivering an energy density of 240.4 watt-hours per kilogram.”
The equivalent for gasoline is 12000 watt hrs/kg
(still some research to go, here)
Are these going to be $0.10/kg?
Electric bills in my state are going up 17% because of data centers and EV’s
What are you saying? The Chicoms got us beat in the batteries. We win if batteries are good don’t we. Solar power to feed them is free.
Whatever happened to fuel cells?
I set out two 100W [”Nominal”] solar panels today to do my part to help save da Erf.
Moved them around ~3 times.
A Meter says +0.64 kWh over 12 hours. [It was partly cloudy much of the day.]
My marginal kWh rate is $0.07/kWh.
I’m saving pennies/day, assuming that my time is worthless.
They would be great for RVs. Electricity, charging batts, and fresh water as a byproduct. (No cryo stirs though, please)
Hydrogen is tough stuff to keep contained. Notorious for leaks. I think it also has to be kept at cryogenic temperatures as well.
Not likely...................
It’s still a battery. I never met a battery I liked.
I thought peeps were working on Propane, CH4, gasoline and JetFuel/Diesel fuel cells.
I’ve heard the H2 molecules are very, very small.
100,000 cars charging all at once in 6 minutes = grid failure.
I’ve come to h8 batteries, in general, in my old age.
A part of my day is now devoted to ABC [Always Be Charging]. As a kid, I never really had to attend to them.
Don’t worry, the windmills and solar panels can handle it!.......................said no one ever.............
My father (Physics Academic) was doing battery research from ~1960 to 1980.
At which point he abandoned it and moved on to physics of surfaces, catalysis, crystal growth etc.
His conclusion was batteries were too dangerous (metal fires) and there were no likely breakthroughs coming in the future (both correct)
batteries are not close to competitive to fossil fuels, and likely never will be.
For applications like surface vehicles (let alone aircraft) where weight matters, batteries are a bust.
That’s the kicker. Taking a fast charge is one thing. Delivering it in the quantity needed is quite another.
Well, I wondered about that as well. Do they have to be Hydrogen/Oxygen based?
The Fresh Water generation as byproduct in the NASA versions is why I think “yes”, but it isn’t an efficient process or cost effective. But they would be really handy at cabins or RV or off grid living.
But ONLY attempt charging while the Sun is shining. ANY use of evil hydrocarbons AT ALL will result in 10 demerits and mandatory re-education.
Epic.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.