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Battery Breakthrough: Researchers Claim 70% Charge In 2 Minutes, 20-Year Life

Posted by Soulskill on from the but-only-works-for-left-handed-people dept.

New submitter chaosdivine69 writes: According to Scientists at Nanyang Technology University (NTU), they have developed ultra-fast charging batteries that can be recharged up to 70 per cent in only two minutes and have a 20-year lifespan (10,000 charges). The impact of this is potentially a game changer for a lot of industries reliant on lithium ion batteries. In the car industry, for example, consumers would save on costs for battery replacement and manufacturers would save on material construction (the researchers are using a nanotube structure of Titanium dioxide, which is an abundant, cheap, and safe material found in soil). Titanium dioxide is commonly used as a food additive or in sunscreen lotions to absorb harmful ultraviolet rays. It is believed that charging an electric car can be done in as little as 5 minutes, making it comparable to filling up a tank of gasoline.

36 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. No mention on capacity though by Obscene_CNN · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No mention on capacity though. If its capacity is low enough the these claims are easy to achieve.

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    1. Re:No mention on capacity though by gaelfx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...Prof Chen's new cross-linked titanium dioxide nanotube-based electrodes eliminate the need for these additives and can pack more energy into the same amount of space.

      Seems like it should be, at the very least, on par with current capacities, if not greater. You are correct though, there does not seem to be a direct statement regarding capacity, making me very suspicious.

    2. Re:No mention on capacity though by grantspassalan · · Score: 5, Informative

      Even if it did have enough capacity, it would take a 2 MW power supply to charge a 100 kW battery in five minutes, assuming there were no losses. A “gas station” that could “fill” five electric cars simultaneously would have to have a 10 MW grid connection. I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

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    3. Re:No mention on capacity though by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Do you mean a 100kW/hr battery? There is no such thing as a 100kW battery. Idiot.

      There is no such thing as 100kW/hr battery. There is a 100kWh battery.

      If you are going to call people idiots, it's best not to be one.

    4. Re:No mention on capacity though by the_other_chewey · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Do you mean a 100kW/hr battery? There is no such thing as a 100kW battery. Idiot.

      Neither is there a 100kW/hr battery. Moron.

    5. Re:No mention on capacity though by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

      A “gas station” that could “fill” five electric cars simultaneously would have to have a 10 MW grid connection.

      A 10MW or larger grid connection is not particularly uncommon. A factory, mall, or large building might need that much. Almost any power company would have some customers with those kind or requirements. If the "gas station" is on a busy street, there might already be nearby lines available.

    6. Re:No mention on capacity though by TheInternetGuy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Do you mean a 100kW/hr battery? There is no such thing as a 100kW battery. Idiot.

      Do you mean a 100kWh (or possibly kW*h) battery? There is no such thing as a 100kW/hr battery. And note that I won't call you an idiot, just because you are wrong.

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    7. Re:No mention on capacity though by rtb61 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Logically you do not charge electric vehicles at a "commercial vehicle charging station" but at any regularly used parking point via induction charging. Obviously any commercial car park would build in induction charges and charge more slowly based upon estimated parking time and combine charging costs with parking costs. Employers would naturally subsidise the cost of the employee car parks by offering vehicle charging, over the life of a car park it makes sense. Even shopping malls could add in metered vehicle induction charging to charge vehicles during their stay. Pretty much the plain 'gas station' would die over time, replaced by diners with charging while you eat, mini marts with charging while you shop, basically any type of business that has to pay for car parks looking to subsidise that cost with induction charging fees.

      This battery breakthrough by "TU professor Rachid Yazami, the co-inventor of the lithium-graphite anode", points to exactly why mega battery factories are so financially risky at this time, real battery breakthroughs are coming down the line, that will change everything. Tying into the right technology (now is the right time) and making sure your investment can compete for the next say 15 years is critical.

      Not just used in cars of course but also to be used in residential properties to really drive renewable energy sources and people in the burbs being able to escape the grid (where battery life and capacity are everything and charging time is not so important). Most people of course will be charging at home most of the time and as long as fuelling points match dining times and battery capacity, fuelling on road would be pretty much as it already is on long trips.

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    8. Re:No mention on capacity though by tibit · · Score: 3

      The energy is stored in the moment of inertia, so it being heavy without regard to geometry is not enough. In realistic implementations, you need composite flywheels where something dense is used at the edge, and something stiff and strong is used elsewhere.

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    9. Re:No mention on capacity though by icebike · · Score: 4, Informative

      Moving all of the energy that a 85 kW-hr lithium-ion EV battery can hold into a battery in 2 or 5 minutes would require some truly dangerous amperage,
      and some enormous amount of heat could be generated.

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    10. Re:No mention on capacity though by MildlyTangy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Moving all of the energy that a 85 kW-hr lithium-ion EV battery can hold into a battery in 2 or 5 minutes would require some truly dangerous amperage,
      and some enormous amount of heat could be generated.

      Go parallel.

      The 85kW battery pack in a Tesla for instance, has a huge bunch of standard lithium ion cells in parallel and in series. Have multiple charger conductors to each charge a section of the entire pack, which reduces the amperage per conductor, but keeps the power input to the whole pack at a maximum.

    11. Re:No mention on capacity though by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Moving all of the energy that a 85 kW-hr lithium-ion EV battery can hold into a battery in 2 or 5 minutes would require some truly dangerous amperage,
      and some enormous amount of heat could be generated.

      Whoa! That's assuming the resistance of current battery tech to be the same. Clearly it is not with this new titanium dioxide plus sodium hydroxide gel being used. If the resistance was the same then charging times would not be so low. All the team did was replace the anode material with the new stuff and WHAMO! charge time goes to single digit minutes. Nowhere in the article, summary or journal article (free, by the way) does it say that any charging ampere changes are made to get the shortened recharge time.

    12. Re:No mention on capacity though by Rei · · Score: 5, Interesting

      And of course, the assumption that if your station's maximum output is 10 MW that you have to have a 10 MW feed to the grid is also wrong. It presumes that you can't have a battery buffer in your station. Look at your typical gas station; pumps spend by far most of their time idle. A charging station with a peak output of 10 MW could probably meet all its needs with a 2 MW feed and a 20-minute battery buffer (although a statistical analysis of consumption patterns would be required for specifics)

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    13. Re:No mention on capacity though by Rei · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is not going to suddenly "change everything". First off, there's so little info here you can't even see through the hype. There's nothing to get an idea of how hard this would be to commercialize, what its energy density would be, or any of tons of other things that make a big difference. And secondly, these are hardly the first lab-scale batteries to have properties like this. Heck, there have even been lithium titanate batteries commercialized before. Crazy charge / discharge times, but they were largely a flop except in niche applications - the cost was way too high and the energy density too low.

      There is every week or two some great research breakthrough in battery storage. Most of them you'll never read about. Most of them will never go anywhere. But a few will. And they will slowly, inevitably make their way into the battery technology of tomorrow. Silicon anodes, for example, were once among those crazy lab future battery techs. Now they're in commercial cells. People never stop to think about how little the batteries in their phones have gotten in an area of increasing computing power, larger screens, greater demands on lifespan, etc. Energy density continues its inevitable march.... in the background. But the odds that any one tech that you read about is going to carry the industry is very small. And these things take half a decade to go from the lab to stores.

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    14. Re:No mention on capacity though by m00j · · Score: 5, Informative

      USA electricity pricing is 8 - 17 cents / kWh (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...). So let's say $0.2 per kWh
      10MW = 10,000 kW. So if you were using the full 10MW connection that would cost $2000 per hour. I'm sure if you are using that much you get a special rate.

      From a quick search I found this PDF: https://www.ergon.com.au/__dat...
      For that particular 26500m^2 shopping centre their energy usage was 4000 kVA, which is 4MW. There are at least 9 shopping centres in Australia that are 5x larger than that in terms of m^2.

      So yes, there definitely are connections of that magnitude delivering continuous power. And they are not all that uncommon.

    15. Re:No mention on capacity though by fluffy99 · · Score: 3, Informative

      85 KW*hr in 5 minutes is about a megawatt of power. Even at 10,000 volts, you're talking 100 amps.

    16. Re:No mention on capacity though by michelcolman · · Score: 4, Informative

      OK, some basic electricity:

      Power = amps * voltage. Ergo, to load more energy in a shorter time, you either have to use more amps or more voltage.

      The Tesla supercharger is already at 400V, I don't think they want to go any higher because otherwise they would. All you need to do is put more cells in series. 400V looks like the highest they're comfortable with.

      This means there's only one variable left: more amps. And if, like you say, the resistance of the new batteries is lower, that is precisely what would allow them to use more amps. If resistance is cut in 4, they can use twice the amperage for the same heat generation (per second).

    17. Re:No mention on capacity though by paavo512 · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is 400*250 = 100 000W = 100 kW. To transfer 85 kWh one needs almost an hour.

  2. Light on details, however... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ah, good, the article DOES mention power density indirectly, saying that this new lithium ion design can store more energy more compactly. However, what about heat generation during thie high-speed charging? Will that be a problem?

    1. Re:Light on details, however... by EETech1 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      1 - 2 MW is nothing for a commercial property though. The only reason your house is wired for 100 amps is you would rarely use over 30 - 40. If the demand is there to sell power, the power company will find a way to deliver it to you.

      I design systems with multiple megawatt connections. The last place I was at had 50 MW of service installed to run 5 machines. It was nothing out of the ordinary.

      Getting 250 Amps of 480 3 phase is nothing for a commercial property. That would handily cover your 200KW load.

  3. Licensed? by ArcadeMan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The technology is currently being licensed by a company for eventual production.

    Is it Tesla?

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  4. Re:Charging amperage by almitydave · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, it says they've developed "a battery" that can be charged that much that fast. It doesn't say what the capacity of this battery is. I'd guess it's a small research/proof-of-concept battery of cell-phone size or smaller. Later in the article, they talk about charging an electric car in <15 minutes. The Tesla superchargers provide 200kW, enough to charge the Tesla Model S with the 85kWh battery fully in 1 hour, and you can get home chargers that charge at 200V 100A. Surely 4 times the amperage wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility?

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  5. If so... by kefalonia · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...the impact of this would be profound in energy distribution since it can potentially decouple real-time supply-demand constraints.

  6. Haven't we heard this before? by Dorianny · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If only I had a mod point for every Slashdot story claiming a battery breakthrough!

  7. It's about time by NEDHead · · Score: 4, Funny

    It has been days since my last battery breakthrough fix. When is the next solar panel announcement?

  8. Re:Charging amperage by sribe · · Score: 3, Informative

    Surely 4 times the amperage wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility?

    Not beyond the realm of possibility, no. But requiring not just new wiring into your house, but probably new wiring of an entirely new kind, at higher voltage, with specificallly-designed safety measures in terms of conduit, how it's routed, protection against touching contacts, and so on.

  9. Re:Charging amperage by Carnivore · · Score: 3, Informative

    The current HV battery is around 400V.

  10. Re:Just moves a choke point by svirre · · Score: 3, Informative

    Mangled my own text. Sorry.

    Generally fast chargers will not be in constant use. Hence it is acceptable to build a battery pack in the charging station, which can charge at a more reasonable speed off the grid and be capable of delivering high current at a presumably much much less than 100% duty cycle.

    This was done here: http://www.siemens.com/innovat...

    (Apparantly slashdot chokes on the much much less than sign)

  11. But consider COST by timeOday · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The 10,000 cycles might be a bigger deal than the fast charging, because an increase in longevity is almost equivalent to a proportional cost reduction (which is the real big deal). For example, the amortized cost of battery-backup for solar or wind goes down by nearly 50% if the battery lasts twice as long. If a car battery is going to last for 20 years, the high upfront cost of an electric car would be largely offset by its high residual value - if nothing else you could sell the battery when the car wore out to be used in another car, or for grid backup etc.

  12. Re:Charging amperage by swillden · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Surely 4 times the amperage wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility?

    Not beyond the realm of possibility, no. But requiring not just new wiring into your house, but probably new wiring of an entirely new kind, at higher voltage, with specificallly-designed safety measures in terms of conduit, how it's routed, protection against touching contacts, and so on.

    You wouldn't need or want this sort of rapid charging capability at home. Slow charging works just fine at home, it's when you're traveling long distances or running around town for many hours that you need fast charging.

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  13. the problem with lithium ion technology by ihtoit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...is when it comes to fast charging the things. You run the risk of dendritic shorting, which is where lithium dendrites cross the electrolyte and touch the graphite electrode, causing the battery to short. THAT is where the heat comes from, not a dry chemical reaction. That's also where the risk of batteries exploding arises, and why certain laptop batteries have been exploding - thermal safeties have been omitted from aftermarket batteries, these are the ones that have been exploding because laptops in powered-off state are charging the batteries with the full whack of the PSU which causes the shorting. Without the safeties, the power isn't cut, the dendrites continue to grow until BOOM! Rechargeable batteries have an additive in the electrolyte that's supposed to inhibit dendrite growth, but it doesn't stop it, particularly when the battery is being abused. Anecdotally, I have rechargeable batteries that I've had for 20+ years and they still hold usable charge - for the simple reason that I have never and will never use a fast charger on them.

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  14. 0% profit on gas. Snacks, sodas make 200% by raymorris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The GROSS markup on gasoline is around 2%. Once the station pays for pumps, signage, credit card transaction feesn taxes, etc they make no money on gas. The markup on fountain soda is close to 200%. Gas station owners don't care whether you come for gas, for electric charge, or any other reason. They just want you there for four minutes, long enough to buy a coffee or soda.

  15. 100kW battery makes sense by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There could be such a thing as a 100kW battery: it would be a battery which can provide a power of 100kW. Not all batteries can do this since they have an internal resistance which either prevents this power from being achieved or will cause them to overheat and explode/catch fire even if it is. Indeed, assuming that this battery can carry a decent amount of energy, it is very likely that you could make a 100kW battery from it since it charges so quickly it must have a very low internal resistance.

    Ironically there is no such thing as a 100kW/hr battery though...

  16. Other benefits than a fast charge by mrdogi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seems a lot of comments are focusing on how to actually do that 5-minute charge. Hardly anybody seems to have thought about the other aspects, especially the ultra-long life. If the batteries can last 20 years/10,000 charges/what ever, it seems to me this is a really good thing. I'd be just fine with a 1-hour charge, or even an overnight charge. Top off when I can, good to go.

  17. Re:Charging amperage by TigerNut · · Score: 4, Informative

    Absolutely correct. Most electric cars (if you're keen, check out www.diyelectriccar.com) run at least 72V in a series string of at least 20 lithium-ion cells, and some run over 250V. Charging is done using a state-of-the-art high frequency AC/DC switching power supply with power factor correction, so that charging efficiency is maximized. For any given power transfer, double the voltage means half the amps, and that cuts the resistive power losses to 1/4, so it's always worthwhile to maximize the operating voltage within the bounds of the electronics (and safety considerations).

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  18. Why are slashdotters such idiots on this issue? by Brannon · · Score: 5, Informative

    This entire thread is full of jackasses computing the peak power draw and saying retarded things like "does it come with it's own fusion reactor?".

    1. It's not a big deal to supply constant MWs to a relatively small number of charging stations along interstates. Next time you're driving along a highway look up slightly and notice the power wires carrying hundreds of MW's right next to you.

    2. You don't have to size the power grid connection to cover peak demand, capacitors and batteries located at the refilling station are good at averaging out the peaks so that you just have to worry about some windowed average demand--and average demand is just not that stressful. Think of it this way, gas stations would also run out of gasoline quickly if they were refilling 8 cars at a time every 5 minutes for the entire day. OMG is the gas station right next to a refinery?!?

    3. The vast majority of miles driven are daily commuting miles, which will be covered by low & slow charging at home.

    4. Tesla basically does this *already* with their supercharger network. Why is it so hard to grasp this concept?