Tesla’s Elon Musk may think the future of electric vehicles will one day lie with ultra capacitors, but battery breakthroughs happen nearly every day, so there’s reason to hold your bets for now. Case in point, a new article in the Nature Nanotechnology journal details a new nanostructure-based cathode technology developed in Illinois University professor Paul Braun’s lab.
Professor Paul Braun of Illinois University has had a breakthrough in a new nanostructure-based cathode technology. His research could reduce battery charging times drastically. This was published in the Nature Nanotechnology journal. This new cathode allows extremely fast charging and discharging to the tune of 400C for lithium-ion and 1,000C for NiMH batteries.
In modern batteries, the ability to charge and discharge rapidly often results in reduced capacity, meaning less range in an EV. Unlike these the newly cathode allows extremely fast charging and discharging to the tune of 400C for lithium-ion and 1,000C for NiMH batteries in which, ”C” is the charge (or discharge) rate where 1C equals a charge in one hour. 400C means a full charge in 1/400 of an hour. This means normal lithium-ion batteries could be recharged to 90 percent in just two minutes.
