Discovery/Quick charge

[E Moped]

Did you guys see the announcement about the 2 men at MIT that have discovered a way to make a lithium battery that can be charged in 9 seconds ! I saw this on electricbikee.com

 

[bearing]

link...?

 

[TPA]

http://cleantech.com/news/4264/rapidly-recharging-batteries-may-le

 

[IamIan]

scratch a bit deeper on that story...

Here is another review ... that has some interesting points... such as the test samples... have only shown to increase discharge times ... it is hoped that they will 'could' also help reduce charge times... but that is not the scientific claim... and has not yet been tested or shown.

or forget the 2nd hand "translated" version... it the actual report from the actual scientists that did the work:

Here is the abstract the reporters baised their articles on:

The storage of electrical energy at high charge and discharge rate is an important technology in today's society, and can enable hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and provide back-up for wind and solar energy. It is typically believed that in electrochemical systems very high power rates can only be achieved with supercapacitors, which trade high power for low energy density as they only store energy by surface adsorption reactions of charged species on an electrode material1, 2, 3. Here we show that batteries4, 5 which obtain high energy density by storing charge in the bulk of a material can also achieve ultrahigh discharge rates, comparable to those of supercapacitors. We realize this in LiFePO4 (ref. 6), a material with high lithium bulk mobility7, 8, by creating a fast ion-conducting surface phase through controlled off-stoichiometry. A rate capability equivalent to full battery discharge in 10–20 s can be achieved.

which only talks about discharge rates... they haven't been able to get it to work at all for faster charge rates... notice how all the reports use the word 'could' when they describe the fast charging.... kind of like ... a cold fusion device 'could' power your house.

a, Discharge rate capability after charging at C/5 and holding at 4.3 V until the current reaches C/60.

They got a massive 5 hour charge rate until 4.3V then holding 4.3V until current dropped bellow c/60.... yeah... that's an amazing 6+ hours charge rate. ... it will revolutionize ... oh wait... that isn't a revolutionary charge rate at all.

Considering that they only got 50mAh out of their test cell when discharging it in 9 seconds... compared to the same type of cell giving 170 mAh at a 2C discharge rate... yeah... it needs allot of work... as long as this reduces the batteries capacity to less than 1/3 of what it would be normally.... and of course they have yet to get it to work in the other direction , to charge the battery... as they have only managed to yet get it to work for discharging.