An electric car battery that recharges in less than 5 minutes

engineer of Cornell University has created a new lithium battery that can be charged in a record time of less than five minutes and maintains its performance for longer cycles.

can provide advance relief “Autonomy Anxiety” According to the authors, among drivers who fear that electric vehicles cannot travel long distances without time-consuming recharging.

“Range anxiety is a bigger barrier to electrification in transportation than any other barrier, such as cost and battery capacity, and we have identified a path to overcome it using rational electrode design,” he said in a statement. ” Statement by Lyndon Archer, professor of engineering and dean of the Cornell College of Engineering, who oversaw the project.

“If you can charge an electric vehicle’s battery in five minutes, I mean, God, you don’t need a battery big enough for a 300-mile (500-kilometer) range. You can settle for less than that.” “, which could reduce the cost of electric vehicles and enable widespread adoption,” says Archer, whose work is published in the journal Joule.

lithium ion batteries They are among the most popular means of powering electric vehicles and smartphones. Batteries are lightweight, reliable, and relatively energy efficient. However, they take hours to charge and do not have the ability to withstand large currents.

Researchers identified indium as an exceptionally promising material for fast-charging batteries. Indium is a soft metal, used primarily to make indium tin oxide coatings for touch screens and solar panels.

The new study shows that indium has two important characteristics as a battery anode: an extremely low migration energy barrier, which determines the rate at which ions diffuse into the solid state; and a nominal exchange current density, which is related to the rate of reduction of ions at the anode. The combination of those properties (fast diffusion and slow surface reaction kinetics) is necessary for fast charging and long-term storage.

Archer said, “The key innovation is that we have discovered a design principle that allows metal ions in the anode of the battery to move freely, find the right configuration, and only then participate in the charge storage reaction. ” “The end result is that in each charge cycle, the electrode is in a stable morphological state. This is what gives our new fast-charging batteries the ability to charge and discharge repeatedly over thousands of cycles.”

This technique, combined with Wireless induction charging on roads, This would reduce the size (and cost) of batteries, making electric transportation a more viable option for drivers. However, this does not mean that indium anodes are perfect, or even practical.