thedarlington
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http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/researchers-invent-everlasting-battery-material-47222
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The researchers have not yet built the revolutionary battery itself, but the crystalline copper-based nanoparticles would be a key component for its electrodes.
Apparently in laboratory tests, the electrode survived a staggering 40,000 cycles of charging and discharging, after which it could still be charged to more than 80 percent of its original charge capacity. The average lithium ion battery in comparison can only handle about 400 charge/discharge cycles before it deteriorates too much to be of practical use.
“At a rate of several cycles per day, this electrode would have a good 30 years of useful life on the electrical grid,” said Colin Wessells, a graduate student in materials science and engineering who is the lead author of a paper describing the research, published in Nature Communications.
“That is a breakthrough performance – a battery that will keep running for tens of thousands of cycles and never fail,”
"
Battery Developments
Meanwhile the race by researchers to improve the performance of batteries continues.
Back in March, a team of electrical engineers at Illinois University revealed they were developing a new type of battery that could extend the running time of mobile phones a hundredfold.
That battery uses carbon nanotubes, which are 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, rather than traditional metal wires. According to the engineers, the energy consumption of a battery is proportional to the size of the components used to store and retrieve information, so smaller wires result in lower energy usage.
Other researchers from the University of Maryland have also been working to improve the capacity of lithium-ion batteries. Last year it was reported that a biological virus known as the Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) could increase the surface area of electrodes in a battery, resulting in a ten-fold increase in energy capacity.
Meanwhile in September scientists at the University of Leeds invented a jelly lithium battery. The flexible polymer gel batteries can be shaped and bent to fit virtually any device and can be made just nanometres thick at a rate of ten metres per minute.
"
The researchers have not yet built the revolutionary battery itself, but the crystalline copper-based nanoparticles would be a key component for its electrodes.
Apparently in laboratory tests, the electrode survived a staggering 40,000 cycles of charging and discharging, after which it could still be charged to more than 80 percent of its original charge capacity. The average lithium ion battery in comparison can only handle about 400 charge/discharge cycles before it deteriorates too much to be of practical use.
“At a rate of several cycles per day, this electrode would have a good 30 years of useful life on the electrical grid,” said Colin Wessells, a graduate student in materials science and engineering who is the lead author of a paper describing the research, published in Nature Communications.
“That is a breakthrough performance – a battery that will keep running for tens of thousands of cycles and never fail,”
"
Battery Developments
Meanwhile the race by researchers to improve the performance of batteries continues.
Back in March, a team of electrical engineers at Illinois University revealed they were developing a new type of battery that could extend the running time of mobile phones a hundredfold.
That battery uses carbon nanotubes, which are 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, rather than traditional metal wires. According to the engineers, the energy consumption of a battery is proportional to the size of the components used to store and retrieve information, so smaller wires result in lower energy usage.
Other researchers from the University of Maryland have also been working to improve the capacity of lithium-ion batteries. Last year it was reported that a biological virus known as the Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) could increase the surface area of electrodes in a battery, resulting in a ten-fold increase in energy capacity.
Meanwhile in September scientists at the University of Leeds invented a jelly lithium battery. The flexible polymer gel batteries can be shaped and bent to fit virtually any device and can be made just nanometres thick at a rate of ten metres per minute.
