Recharging the electric car battery in the same time it takes to refuel with gasoline is still something utopian. Recharging times, although they have improved compared to previous years, still do not reach the speed offered by refueling with conventional fuels. In the best of cases, excluding interchangeable batteries, direct current superchargers offer the possibility of charging the car up to 80% in approximately 30 minutes.
This setback, which is one of the main reasons slowing down the penetration of electric cars in countries like Spain, could be overcome in the near future. Engineers at Cornell University have created a new lithium battery that can be charged in the record time of less than five minutes and maintains its performance over long cycles, Europa Press reports.
The engineering professor and dean of the Cornell College of Engineering (New York, United States), Lynden Archer, who supervised the project, explains in a statement that they have identified a way to eliminate the barrier that represents “anxiety about autonomy” that users suffer using rational electrode designs.
The study reveals that the key element to achieve the challenge of recharging a battery in less than five minutes is indium. It is a soft metal mainly used to make indium tin oxide coatings for touch screens and solar panels, exhibiting great properties as a battery anode.
These properties include an extremely low migration energy barrier and a modest exchange current density. The combination of those qualities (fast diffusion and slow surface reaction kinetics) is what facilitates rapid charging and long-term storage.
“The key innovation is that we have discovered a design principle that allows the metal ions in the anode of a battery to move freely, find the correct configuration and only then participate in the charge storage reaction,” said Lynden Archer.
“The end result is that in each charge cycle, the electrode is in a stable morphological state. This is precisely what gives our new fast charging batteries the ability to charge and discharge repeatedly for thousands of cycles,” adds Archer whose work has been published by the scientific journal Joule.
The authors of the study suggest that if the battery of an electric car can be charged in five minutes, it is not necessary for cars to equip large batteries to reach distances of 500 kilometers. “Drivers may settle for less, which could reduce the cost of electric vehicles and allow them to expand.”
Lithium-ion batteries are among the most popular means of powering electric vehicles and smartphones. They are light, reliable and relatively energy efficient but, on the other hand, they take hours to charge and lack the capacity to withstand large current peaks.
The use of indium, with its unique properties, demonstrates the potential of new advances in battery technology, bringing us closer to a future where electric cars could be the majority in the vehicle fleet. This advance will not only serve to popularize electromobility by road, but represents an important step towards reducing dependence on fossil fuels and moving towards new, more sustainable modes of transport.
