Car Battery Breakthrough?
$5.15m to move the battery technology it has developed from the lab to commercial production over the next few years. While there are literally hundreds of companies developing automotive batteries to feed the growing hybrid and electric automotive industries, there is a bit more promise in the technology developed here than in standard lithium ion batteries that are under development currently.
While still in lad scale, the technology, which uses lithium itself, rather than lithium ion material to create an electrical charge, is able to last through 5,000 to 10,000 charge cycles as opposed to typical lithium based batteries which last between 2,000 and 3,000 charging cycles. Given that 37% of the US population does not have a garage in which to charge an electric vehicle, the industry must rely on external charging stations, which take hours for a full charge.
The prototype of Adden Energy’s solid state lithium battery takes only a few minutes to charge, essentially the time it would take for a fill up at a typical fossil-fuel gas station. Lithium metal battery technology has been and continues to be a subject of considerable research given it superior energy density and capacity, but there is a problem with the metal as it is repeatedly charged. When metallic lithium is charged over time it forms dendrites, small structures that ‘grow’ from the anode of the battery to the cathode, essentially shorting out the device or even causing it to overheat.
While not stopping the growth of dendrites, Adden researchers have found a way to keep them from growing by inserting less stable formulations of lithium between stable versions, sort of adding condiments to a sndwich, and while this seems counterintuitive, it makes the entire package more stable. The dendrites from the stable lithium (aka LPSCl) still grow, even though the next layer made of graphite, but are unable to grow through the less stable lithium electrolyte and do not reach the cathode and short the battery. Of course, there is considerable work to be done to scale the process to the larger sizes needed for commercialization although thus far no scaling issues have been found and the recent funding will give the company the financing to begin the process, which will hopefully lead to the refinement of the process and a step forward for automotive battery technology.
While still in lad scale, the technology, which uses lithium itself, rather than lithium ion material to create an electrical charge, is able to last through 5,000 to 10,000 charge cycles as opposed to typical lithium based batteries which last between 2,000 and 3,000 charging cycles. Given that 37% of the US population does not have a garage in which to charge an electric vehicle, the industry must rely on external charging stations, which take hours for a full charge.
The prototype of Adden Energy’s solid state lithium battery takes only a few minutes to charge, essentially the time it would take for a fill up at a typical fossil-fuel gas station. Lithium metal battery technology has been and continues to be a subject of considerable research given it superior energy density and capacity, but there is a problem with the metal as it is repeatedly charged. When metallic lithium is charged over time it forms dendrites, small structures that ‘grow’ from the anode of the battery to the cathode, essentially shorting out the device or even causing it to overheat.
While not stopping the growth of dendrites, Adden researchers have found a way to keep them from growing by inserting less stable formulations of lithium between stable versions, sort of adding condiments to a sndwich, and while this seems counterintuitive, it makes the entire package more stable. The dendrites from the stable lithium (aka LPSCl) still grow, even though the next layer made of graphite, but are unable to grow through the less stable lithium electrolyte and do not reach the cathode and short the battery. Of course, there is considerable work to be done to scale the process to the larger sizes needed for commercialization although thus far no scaling issues have been found and the recent funding will give the company the financing to begin the process, which will hopefully lead to the refinement of the process and a step forward for automotive battery technology.
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