http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/03/lithium-breakthrough-could-charge-batteries-in-10-seconds.ars

While it is exciting, there is still much work to be done. For example, the efficiency at higher recharging current is very very bad. I don't understand how energy is lost from high current recharging. The other thing is that the surface that they made to facilitate lithium ion movement is glass-like, and so it could be brittle and unsafe for applications that have irregular vibrations.

. I don't understand how energy is lost from high current recharging.

It's lost as heat.


The other thing is that the surface that they made to facilitate lithium ion movement is glass-like, and so it could be brittle and unsafe for applications that have irregular vibrations.

I'm thinking the use of the adjective 'glass-like' means it is smooth, not that it is brittle. I interpret it as... like grains of sand with polished surfaces.

glass like might just be the dumbed down version of "amorphous" because glass is the quintessential amorphous substance at the molecular level. I imagine these pieces of glass (or whatever they are) are extremely small and wouldn't be like a dinner plate rattling around in your battery.

Remember Dan Nocera. Also of MIT. He claimed to have discovered a breakthrough for water hydrolysis but his claims were highly exaggerated. Looks like he was only fishing for more funding.

Thus, while this sounds fantastic and if true will change the world as we know it, I'm going to take the wait-and-see approach.

The good news is that the surface treatment is said to be as durable as the phosphate material. Read another article here:

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=215801893&pgno=2

Also, they have already licensed this technology out to two companies! This is the really promising news.

This discovery would change Voltech, PB's business model and Tesla in one swoop. Is this the Holy Grail that we have been waiting for? I sure hope so. We need a good battery!

Not sure if this will affect the Volt in any way, especially if the technology turns out to be more expensive than your regular Lion batteries. They said that the battery had 166 mAh/g energy density, which compares to about 150 mAh/g for normal Lion cells. But they had to drop the density to 110 mAh/g to get the high power. So the energy density is less than the LG batteries. With the Volt large capacity batteries, the power has never really been a problem, the energy density is the main concern. The PHEV batteries might benefit from this technology a lot, since there the power density is more important.

Hate to say this but you all have been blinded by quick charges over efficiency of recharging. The main reason why plug-in vehicles are excellent is because the overall cost of electricity to move the vehicle certain distance is cheaper than the cost of gasoline powered car driven in the same distance. Now with the overall charging effciency so low that it is going to cost several times more kwH recharging than the useful kwH stored, there will be no appeal for the plug-in vehicle. The ICE would be cheaper to operate per mile basis than such a quick charging but low efficiency battery.

Currently, the more advanced Li-Ion batteries are in the neighborhood of 90% or more efficiency based on total energy discharged for power production/total energy used for charging. This new battery will be less than 12.5% efficient, depending upon how much you increase the current. But of course, that will be the next problem to solve.

Let's say electricity costs $.10 per kWh. And let's say it's 12.5% efficient. That means to charge a Volt, to be able to go 40 miles worth (8kWh), then you would need 64kWh to charge it. At $.10 per kWh, you are paying $6.40 to charge your Volt to do what the range extender would do with 1 gallon of gas. Well, assuming your 12.5% is correct, that would present an economic problem, however, most people would probably be slow charging at home where it's more efficient 90% of the time.

Let's say electricity costs $.10 per kWh. And let's say it's 12.5% efficient. That means to charge a Volt, to be able to go 40 miles worth (8kWh), then you would need 64kWh to charge it. At $.10 per kWh, you are paying $6.40 to charge your Volt to do what the range extender would do with 1 gallon of gas. Well, assuming your 12.5% is correct, that would present an economic problem, however, most people would probably be slow charging at home where it's more efficient 90% of the time.

You're absolutely right and agreed with the article that there is no economic reason to use such kind of quick charging battery. It is applicable in some niche application, but not for EV such as the Volt when the cheaper alternatives to it are here and now.

as a datapoint to our thinking, note that Tesla has announced that their Model S will have "quick charge" using 440v 3 phase at commercial locations. Prior to the press release, and unofficially, "quick" was defined as 45 minutes.

Also note that MIT is largely into pure research. Yes, there are areas where they work on commercializing, but their major income is from the licenses resulting from the research. Don't look for this technology to be commercially available in the timeframe of the Volt.

Also, Burt Rutan once answered the question, "what is the limit to fast charging" as 4.5 seconds.

"It's all relative".

Before you all gang up on quick-charging, how about we wait to see how it turns out. Yes, I know this technology will kill the Voltech concept but it's for the best and will happen eventually. Voltech was only meant as a short to medium-term solution. An important technology to transition away from petroleum. Just because it won't be around for a long time does not mean it's not extremely important. Baby steps. Even if we had this fancy battery tomorrow it would still take a long time to get newly designed vehicles and the infrastructure in place. The Volt is still needed!

Remember, that a majority of the time people will slow-charge. Ninety percent of the time the car will be plugged into the smart-grid taking on inexpensive energy and delivering expensive energy (like during peak demand).

Quick-charging should only be for times when:

1) The driver wants to go an unusually long distance (like on vacation or to meet up with family).

2) Forgot to plug in and needs a quick shot of energy.


In fact, just look at the Better Place model. They expect their members to go to the swap-out stations far less than they go to the gas station currently. If not, they will get a refund!

Even if the efficiency is only 12.5 percent (if true it would be due to the generation of heat and the resulting cooling required) it would still be clean, can be provided by solar and wind, and wont need a drop of anything from OPEC.

Quick-charge batteries and or ultracaps are coming and will be the future electrical energy storage systems in EVs. It's just a matter of time. It's a good thing.

While the initial results look promising, don't get too euphoric just yet. Sounds to me like this technology is only at a TRL-5 level, maybe even TRL-4. There is still a lot of development work to do – like determining how producible is it and the effects of aging on performance. It is still 10 years away from production--if we are lucky.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/12/fast_charge_battery_bubble_stab/

OK, make that a TRL-3 and 15 years. ;)

TRL-4 and 3y market introduction.

This product just seems able to solve the last hurdle for massive use of LFP in automotive: how to combine cost competitiveness with high power capabilities (especially at low temp.)

I think I'll wait until there is a product that someone can buy... before I start getting excited.

you might have wanted to look into the details a bit more...

Here (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/12/fast_charge_battery_bubble_stab/) is another review of the same article... that has some interesting points... such as the test samples... have only shown to increase discharge times ... it is suspected that they will also help reduce charge times... but that is not the scientific claim... that is just the other reporters ... and their "version" of the truth.

or forget the 2nd hand "translated" version... it the actual report from the actual scientists that did the work:

Here is the abstract the reporters baised their articles on:


The storage of electrical energy at high charge and discharge rate is an important technology in today's society, and can enable hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and provide back-up for wind and solar energy. It is typically believed that in electrochemical systems very high power rates can only be achieved with supercapacitors, which trade high power for low energy density as they only store energy by surface adsorption reactions of charged species on an electrode material1, 2, 3. Here we show that batteries4, 5 which obtain high energy density by storing charge in the bulk of a material can also achieve ultrahigh discharge rates, comparable to those of supercapacitors. We realize this in LiFePO4 (ref. 6), a material with high lithium bulk mobility7, 8, by creating a fast ion-conducting surface phase through controlled off-stoichiometry. A rate capability equivalent to full battery discharge in 10–20 s can be achieved. (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7235/abs/nature07853.html)

which only talks about discharge rates... they haven't been able to get it to work at all for faster charge rates... notice how all the reports use the word 'could' when they describe the fast charging.

Some of the graphs from the people who did the work are also useful:

Here (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7235/fig_tab/nature07853_F3.html#figure-title)

&

Here (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7235/fig_tab/nature07853_F4.html#figure-title)


a, Discharge rate capability after charging at C/5 and holding at 4.3 V until the current reaches C/60. C/n denotes the rate at which a full charge or discharge takes n hours. The loading density of the electrode is 3.86 mg cm-2. At 2C, the capacity is close to the theoretical value. b, Capacity retentions when performing full charge–discharge cycles at constant 20C and 60C current rates for 50 cycles. The loading density of the electrode is 3.60 mg cm-2 for the 20C rate and 2.71 mg cm-2 for the 60C rate. The voltage window is approximately 2.5–4.3 V. The electrode formulation is active material (80 wt%), carbon (15 wt%) and binder (5 wt%). (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7235/fig_tab/nature07853_F3.html#figure-title)

yeah... you got me there... they got a massive charge rate of c/5 until 4.3V then holding 4.3V until current dropped bellow c/60.... yeah... that's an amazing 6+ hours charge rate. ;)... it will revolutionize ... oh wait... that isn't a revolutionary charge rate at all. :rolleyes:

Considering that they only got 50mAh out of their test cell when discharging it in 9 seconds... compared to the same type of cell giving 170 mAh at a 2C discharge rate... yeah... the "magic pixie dust" needs allot of work, as long as this reduces the batteries capacity to less than 1/3 of what it would be normally.... and of course the "magic pixie dust" needs to work in the other direction to charge the battery... as they have only managed to yet get it to work for discharging.
;)

TRL-4 and 3y market introduction.

This product just seems able to solve the last hurdle for massive use of LFP in automotive: how to combine cost competitiveness with high power capabilities (especially at low temp.)

3 yrs to market for a TRL-4 technology? That's an awlful agressive path. You sincerely think they can get this technology into a car battery in 3 years, given the potential liablity issues over a mandated 10 year life? Fifteen years may be a tad exaggerated, but I'd be amazed this technology finds its way into a car in 3-years. Maybe a cell phone or laptop battery...given their relative short life and fast technology refresh rate.

@rooster:
you take the bet?
MIT patent just been published meaning that already 18-24 months development could have passed already. Who knows, maybe this product is already in qualification somewhere?

@rooster:
you take the bet?
MIT patent just been published meaning that already 18-24 months development could have passed already. Who knows, maybe this product is already in qualification somewhere?

getting a patent doesn't mean anything.

Dolphin communicator Patent (http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5392735.html)

I'm sure you could find thousands of other useless patents for things that never worked.

I finally read this article including the "Supplementary" information available online. The most important graph was in the supplement (figure 6b) which showed the high-rate capacity for their new material and the "control" sample which was "standard" LFP made by the same process, but then ball-milled to the same particle size as their glass-coated particles. Their new material had about 50% higher capacity at high discharge rates than their own control. Given that they are not comparing to a state-of-the-art material, I doubt the 50% higher capacity is really that much of a breakthrough, if at all. Surely the authors could have gone down the hall to Prof. Chang's lab (of A123 fame) and asked for the best they had for comparison? If they did, they didn't report it. I don't see even the 50% they report as the game changer all the hype suggests.

The sad thing from my perspective is that the work is actually pretty interesting. The structure of the particles is cool and it's interesting that the structure is generated in a relatively simple process. It's just not anything so vastly different than what 1000's of other people are doing.