Could battery discovery make long-range electric cars viable?

Could battery discovery make long-range electric cars viable?

Could battery discovery make long-range electric cars viable?
mongabay.com
January 16, 2008

A discovery by Stanford University researchers could extend the life of rechargeable lithium ion batteries ten-fold, potentially ushering in a new era of 40-hour laptop batteries and long-range electric cars.



CNET reports that Dr. Yi Cui and colleagues at Stanford University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering have developed a new type of anode that utilizes silicon nanowires to store as much as 10 times more charge than a conventional lithium ion battery which uses graphite as the anode.



“It’s not a small improvement,” Cui way quoted as saying. “It’s a revolutionary development.”



Cui’s anode apparently overcomes a problem that has plagued lithium battery development for over 30 years, explains CNET.

Silicon anodes have the “the highest theoretical charge capacity” according to Cui’s paper, but they expand when charging and shrink during use: a cycle that causes the silicon to be pulverized, degrading the performance of the battery…



Cui and his colleagues looked at this old problem and overcame it by constructing a new type of silicon nanowire anode. In Cui’s anode, the lithium is stored in a forest of tiny silicon nanowires… The nanowires inflate to four times their normal size as they soak up lithium, but unlike previous silicon anodes, they do not fracture.

Cui said the technology is not far from commercialization.



“We are working on scaling up and evaluating the cost of our technology,” Cui said. “There are no roadblocks for either of these.”



Electric car development has been held back by the high cost and low storage capacity of batteries. Technological breakthroughs could dramatically increase the viability of plug-in vehicles.