Can a company that’s 100 years old be called a startup? Mary Petrovich, Executive Chairman of AxleTech, certainly thinks so. AxleTech was founded in 1919 as Wisconsin Custom Built Axles, and has seen a century’s worth of sales, acquisitions, and rebrandings since then. Petrovich herself brought AxleTech back from the brink of failure not once,… Read more »
Search Results Found For: "lithium metal"
PNNL research finds that optimal salt concentration increases battery life
Researchers at the DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have discovered that the “special sauce” of batteries is all about the salt concentration. By getting the right amount of salt right where they want it, they’ve demonstrated that a lithium-metal battery can undergo about seven times more charge/discharge cycles than batteries with conventional electrolytes. Finding an electrolyte solution… Read more »
Neutron imaging improves battery filling process
Researchers from Bosch, the Technical University of Munich, and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg are using neutron imaging to analyze the filling of lithium-ion batteries with electrolytes. Since very few neutrons are absorbed by the metal battery housing, they are ideal for analyzing batteries. In “Visualization of electrolyte filling process and influence of vacuum during filling… Read more »
New Li-ion battery sensor tech promises 5x faster charging
According to researchers at the University of Warwick (UK), a new testing technique they have developed shows that commercially available lithium-ion batteries can safely be charged up to five times faster than currently recommended. In a paper entitled “Understanding the limits of rapid charging using instrumented commercial 18650 high-energy Li-ion cells,” published in the journal Electrochimica… Read more »
Batteries expected to increase demand for nickel
Just one word for you: nickel. That’s the gist of a new report from the metals and minerals research firm Roskill. In its latest ten-year market outlook, Roskill predicts nickel consumption will rise by almost 4% per year, driven by increased consumption by stainless steel producers and by growth in demand in the automotive battery… Read more »
New EV battery recycling model quantifies cost and energy savings
What’s going to happen to all those lithium-ion batteries after they die? What’s the best way to recycle them? A new model developed at the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory allows industry insiders to assess the money and energy savings from recycling EV batteries. ReCell, a closed-loop battery recycling model, offers preliminary estimates of total costs… Read more »
Revolutionary continuous mixing process for producing Li-ion electrode slurries: Lower costs and higher quality
Sponsored by Bühler By Dr. Adrian Spillmann, Head of Market Segment Battery Solutions with Grinding & Dispersion Technologies at Bühler The manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries are currently in the process of massively expanding their global capacity. These investments are being driven by rising demand for electric vehicles, among other things. By 2025, the market for such vehicles… Read more »
Swiss researchers develop prototype solid-state sodium battery
Researchers from Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, and the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have built a prototype solid-state battery based on sodium as an alternative to lithium. The scientists described their research in the journal Energy and Environmental Science. Using metallic lithium as an anode material would theoretically increase energy… Read more »
Fisker files patents on solid-state battery tech
Reborn automaker Fisker has filed patents for a new type of solid-state battery technology that it says could lead to much greater energy density and faster charging times. According to Fisker, current limitations of solid-state technology include low electrode current density, limited temperature ranges and non-scalable manufacturing processes. Other drawbacks include: low power and low… Read more »
The technical reasons Tesla would limit supercharging speed, and other practical charging considerations
Recently, a bit of a kerfuffle kicked up when a Tesla Model S owner noticed that the maximum charge rate for his car on the Supercharger network had suddenly been cut from 120 kW down to 90 kW, apparently the result of too many fast charge cycles. Tesla’s explanation was, essentially, that many things can… Read more »