Okay, so maybe the headline is a tad on the sensational side, but seriously, this has sensational written all over it. A team of brilliant
MIT engineers have conjured up a beltway of sorts that allows for "rapid transit of electrical energy through a well-known battery material," something that could usher in smaller and lighter cells that could recharge in moments versus hours. There's even talk that this technology could be adapted for use in automobiles, and honestly, it doesn't take an electrical engineer to understand how rapid charge / discharge batteries could "induce lifestyle changes." Hey, laptop
battery makers -- could you guys look into getting these ready to go in machines by CES 2010? That'd be swell, thanks.
[Via
BBC, thanks Simon]
posted Mar 12th 2009 9:36AM
Only 1 hour 42 minutes until my laptop battery is charged!
In other news highest ranked is back. Fuck yeah!
In other news, Highest Ranked has been here for quite a few weeks. Just Engadget's bad system doesn't want to show it until you click on the actual comment.
Could there a way to charge wiimotes when your shaking them?
you just blew my mind
itll never die when playing Wii exotic sports.
Is this breakthrough passed of mold?
"Immediately after the discovery, one of the researchers pooped in a petri dish."
Dude if yours looks like that..
"that'd be swell" - well... it might be when the battery rapidly swells and explodes in your pocket/backpack/parking lot. :D
"This is your battery on rapid-transit electrical energy. Any questions?"
symbiote?!?!
i red it on ars technica today.
Seems that
"The electrodes also become a problem because they need to occupy more of the volume of the battery in order to maintain this rate of charge"
umh.
I suggest you read the register article on this. Sensationalist is right - This is someone misconstruing what MIT said
battery tech is where it's at.
tell someone that they can fully charge their car battery in less time than it would take them to fill their tank, and they're sold!
except you would have to charge your battery every single day.
Ok, not EVERY day, just on days that you go anywhere.
@elBravo. Not necessarily. They said the batteries would be smaller too. So in theory for the same volume of battery you would be able to store one hell of a charge. Maybe not 300 miles, but maybe half that. And the scenario would probably have a 'plug it in when you get home' setup like the Volt is going to have. Those that can't plug in when they get home (apartment dwellers, etc) still wouldn't have to stop by the "gas" station every day. And hell, if it were much cheaper (lets be honest it wont, though) I wouldn't mind stopping by the fill up station every few days.
I am must certainly looking forward to these magical rapid discharge batteries.
That is awesome, anything that improves batteries these days is just fantastic. I hope the likes of Tesla, Aptera and Mission Motors are listening.
Sweet, magnified bowl resin!
BLAZE IT UP!!!
I heard this story about 3 years ago in wired mag. There was a breakthrough involving some sort of nanotech that maximizes the surface area of the cath/anodes. It was supposed to revolutionize the time batteries could charge/discharge. "Super powered power tools, instant charge electric cars". What happened to that tech. I have a feeling this will go the same way... nowhere. Although I hope not :)
It probably will go somewhere, especially with so many pushing for battery powered vehicles and as many people that have cell phones and laptops and shit now compared to 3 years ago.
It *did* go somewhere - a123systems.com, which shipped in the DeWalt 36V pro tools line...
This would be amazing for electric vehicles. A quick recharge would be so practical, not only for keeping your car going, but also for the power grid, as it wouldn't be sapped from the long recharge times of every car out there.
Same for "gas stations", as they'd be as convenient as they are today, where people just come in, refuel, and go.
I hate to be a wet blanket, but I think quick, huge draws on the lines would destabilize the grid more. The power companies would hate this if it charges a car in, say, 10 minutes. Instead, I suggest that the car companies sell fast chargers that have their own batteries/super-capacitors (whichever is cheaper/more practical) that trickle-charge at a variable over 4-12 hours, capitalizing on off-peak hours to save money and help the power company, and then quickly charge the electric car in minutes while depleting their own reserves. They should hold more power than the car needs to benefit houses with more than one car (enough to charge 1.75 sedans completely sounds smart to me), and possibly allow the user to sell back a certain percentage of that power to the electric company when the grid is at peak hours, offering stability. And, of course, it can trickle charge a car when it's still depleted.
"Gas" stations would keep a massive battery and have it store enough to charge the rough amount of cars it gets every day. Electric signs will say if it has enough power for more customers or not. They'll likely get several large power lines, and pay an appropriately higher rate for the strain their service puts on the grid, which they'll recoup with the cost of a charge.
Quote: this will give a power density of approx 25 kW l-1 at the battery level /Quote from nature paper.
Can't call that a revolution, can you?
Equation holds that:
quick discharge = very low power density.
You have your equation upside down. Quick discharge = very high power density
This better mean charging lanes a la F Zero!
Soon that "quick charge" is going to be so fast that it becomes a "constant" charge..
thats gonna be the dayy
Which means a lot of energy will go into the battery in a very short time.
It's gonna need high amperage outlets for everything.
How does rapid charging make a battery smaller or lighter? They make no claims of increasing energy density, and that's the only way to get to a smaller battery.
As for charging, my laptop charges in about 3 hours. 100 times faster would require something like a 250 Amp charger. Seriously, do you want to re-wire your house so you can charge your laptop faster? Will Dell start selling 250 Amp power blocks? No, they won't.
I think the idea is that people could charge smaller batteries more frequently. Consider that your laptop probably has a 100 watt or less charger (You imply your laptop has a 2.5 amp charger, but that'd be 300 watts on an American power line and 600 watts on a European line. That'd be a massive, hot power supply, the Xbox 360's huge power brick is 200 watts). A household circuit can deliver around 1800 watts. Say we up it to 1400 watts, the approximate draw of a vacuum, so it charges 14x faster. That's about a 13 minute charge time, meaning that you could run down your laptop at a meeting or over your commute, then plug it at a coffee shop and have a charged battery by the time you leave.
The big issue here, of course, is that the power supplies would be huge and need cooling systems, and the laptop would need a larger charger, as that much power needs a lot of surface area and wire gauge, otherwise it will overheat or short the device. I'd expect something in the middle offered as a fast option (say, 30-40 minute charge on 500 watts) for travelers and a lighter option for office and home use. Or kiosks that provide high wattage DC charges for a fee could open up in public areas, and people could set up their own high wattage DC charging station at home. That home one is actually conceivable. If electric cars that can charge in 10 minutes will exist, standardization will need to happen for DC connectors that transfer a lot of power. Otherwise, we'd need to have Ford charging stations, Toyota charging stations, etc. Laptops and other devices could connect via an adapter to these chargers, and it's likely the home chargers would offer outlets for different levels of DC (12v car adapter, 5v USB, etc) as well as other functions (backup battery for the home, DC-AC inverter to use car battery for power in a blackout or to stabilize the grid over peak hours for a rebate).
"....Hey, laptop battery makers -- could you guys look into getting these ready to go in machines by CES 2010? That'd be swell, thanks."
--
They've already got the "swell" part down....
http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/21/swollen-batteries-affecting-17-inch-macbook-pros-too/
CHAAAARGE!
This type of article is why I read Ars Technica. Certainly this battery tech has amazing potential, but it comes at a price. The higher charge rates result in lowered energy density, and also require higher power to charge. Specifically, charging an electric vehicle could take 5 minutes, but according to Ars would require around 180kW.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/03/lithium-breakthrough-could-charge-batteries-in-10-seconds.ars
MIT's PR department is as brilliant as anyone else there. Though higher amperage batteries are always nice.
This is pretty much key for electric vehicle technology to have any chance at becoming mainstream in this country. There are way too many people out there who need vehicles that can go more than 180 miles in a day (before having to charge the car for 6 hours). But give them a car that can go 180 miles between charges and takes only a minute or two to recharge, and suddenly it not only becomes a solution to oil independence, but a desirable commodity.
If by "way too many" you mean less than 5% of the US driving population, then yes, there are way too many people who need vehicles that can go more than 180 miles in a day.
Someday you'll be able to pull into a station and top off the batteries on your car and all your mobile devices within it, heh.