Scientists at Nanyang Technical University in Singapore have developed a lithium-ion battery that could be the best thing that’s happened to the electric vehicle market in a long time. At least it’s being billed as the "next big thing in battery technology,” according to a story in Phys.org. The battery can be charged up to 70% in two minutes and will last much longer because it can handle over 10,000 charging cycles, far more than today’s batteries can tolerate. 1 So, is it the "next big thing in battery technology? It’s certainly worth following the story to find out. To get technical for a moment, the team replaced the graphite usually used for the negative pole in lithium-ion batteries with a gel material of titanium dioxide, a cheap, plentiful and safe substance found in soil. The researchers found a way simply way to turn the substance’s particles into nanotubes, and that nanostructure is responsible for the chemical reactions that provide the ultra-fast charging. The inventor of the material, Associate Professor Chen Xiaodong, was quoted in the article as saying "With our nanotechnology, electric cars would be able to increase their range dramatically with just five minutes of charging, which is on par with the time needed to pump petrol for current cars.
Scientists in Singapore have developed a new lithium ion battery that may be the “next big thing in battery technology”. The battery is expected to charge up to 70% in two minutes and last far longer due to its ability to handle over 1 charging cycles. This was enabled by replacing graphite with titanium oxide, a cheap gel material, which contributes to a nanostructure responsible for creating the chemical reactions that enable fast charging.