Are the knights of nanotechnology closing in on the Grail at last? A team of researchers at Stanford University claim that they are, and have chronicled their deeds in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. The valiant engineers report that they have designed a pure lithium anode. “Of all the materials that one might use in an… Read more »
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For a better battery, hit the beach!
Who knew? The miracle material that could enable a game-changing battery breakthrough is (drumroll, please)…beach sand. Researchers at the University of California Riverside have created a lithium-ion battery that outperforms the current industry standard by three times, using a nanoscale silicon dioxide anode. “This is the holy grail – a low cost, non-toxic, environmentally friendly… Read more »
DOE-supported research projects seek to commercialize silicon-based anodes
The DOE is supporting six applied battery research projects, with the objective of developing cells that provide energy density of more than 200 Wh/kg, along with long cycle life and excellent abuse tolerance. All six projects are using some form of silicon-based material for the anode. A team led by the Argonne National Laboratory is… Read more »
Swedish researchers: Carbon fiber can serve as both body panel and battery
It’s one of the dilemmas of EV design: It’s imperative to keep a vehicle’s weight as low as possible, but the most critical component – the battery – is necessarily quite heavy (and bulky). A little outside-the-box thinking yields an elegant solution – make the box the battery. In other words, design a battery material… Read more »
Wildcat’s new copper fluoride cathode material offers 2.5x more capacity than today’s battery tech
The current generation of lithium-ion battery materials is quickly approaching its theoretical limit. In commercial layered oxide cathodes, like the popular nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC), there is only one lithium ion for every metal. So, the most energy you could possibly store with those materials is one full lithium in and out, or about 300 mAh per… Read more »
Silicon rally: EnerG2’s new silicon battery anode material
It seems that every time the hottest new smartphone or tablet comes out, one of the biggest points of contention among users is its battery life. The demands put on the batteries run them down faster than users would like, and the OEMs can’t simply increase the batteries’ size while still hitting their targets for… Read more »
Kia unveils new Soul EV, to go on sale this year
Kia unveiled its 2015 Soul EV at this week’s Chicago Auto Show. Scheduled to go on sale in the third quarter of 2014, the compact hatchback will be Kia’s first EV sold in the US, initially in just a few states, including California, Oregon, New York, New Jersey and Maryland. Pricing will be announced closer… Read more »
CalBattery’s new SiGr anode material hopes to break the battery bottleneck
California Lithium Battery took advantage of national and local government programs so it could focus on its revolutionary silicon-graphene anode material. Now with EV, electronics, and energy storage customers lining up, it hopes to break the battery bottleneck. When you think about a bottleneck, you think about constriction – something that moves in a particular… Read more »
New anode extends the life of lithium-sulfur batteries
Many researchers are interested in lithium-sulfur batteries, because they can offer up to four times the energy density of lithium-ion chemistries. However, current lithium-sulfur batteries have a much shorter lifespan. In a paper published this week in Nature Communications, a team from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) described a “hybrid” anode… Read more »
Leyden Energy’s Li-imide electrolyte and the rise of start-stop vehicles
Battery start-up Leyden Energy plans to profit from the forecasted groundswell at the bottom of the electrification ladder: start-stop vehicles The average person may see the trademarked Li-imide logo and rush to the nearest convenience store to try a tangy new soft drink. However, you, being a somewhat chemistry-savvy electric vehicle enthusiast, know that Li-imide’s likely… Read more »