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The researchers have found a way to use silicon nanowires to give rechargeable lithium ion batteries--used in laptops, iPods, video cameras, and mobile phones--as much as 10 times more charge. This potentially could give a conventional battery-powered laptop 40 hours of battery life, rather than 4 hours.
The new batteries were developed by assistant professor Yi Cui and colleagues at Stanford University's Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
"It's not a small improvement," Cui said. "It's a revolutionary development."
Citing a research paper they wrote, published in Nature Nanotechnology, Cui said the increased battery capacity was made possible though a new type of anode that utilizes silicon nanowires. Traditional lithium ion batteries use graphite as the anode. This limits the amount of lithium--which holds the charge--that can be held in the anode, and it therefore limits battery life.
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. For 30 years, this dead end stumped researchers, who poured their battery life-extending energy into improving graphite-based anodes.
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, each with a diameter that is a thousandth of the thickness of a sheet of paper. 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 there are a few barriers to commercializing the technology.
"We are working on scaling up and evaluating the cost of our technology," Cui said. "There are no roadblocks for either of these."
Cui has filed a patent on the technology and is considering formation of a company or an agreement with a battery manufacturer. He expects the battery to be commercialized and available within "several years," pending testing.
Alex Serpo of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.
See more CNET content tagged:
silicon, lithium, battery, researcher, battery life
OTOH, can this be adapted to electric cars. With a current range of somewhere around 50-120 miles on a single charge they are pretty much dead. But if that can be extended to 500 to 1200 miles now that would be a very practical car, able to take long weekend vacations on a single charge, or at least have a range that would allow one to drive all day and recharge overnight to continue the next day.
I am also kind of wondering how many other developments are sitting in limbo because of the tools to get the job done were nonexistent at the time of R&D.
Gasoline is 47,000 joules per gram.
Even a 10-fold increase puts batteries far behind gasoline.
that market first. Unless the amperage required for a car batter is
too high for this technology?
And to the fool who says all plant life will die...uh...all that life existed before the automobile and the industrial revolution. Don't tell me you're so stupid as to think plants need automotive CO2 to survive.
"OK, we'll take care of it." <CLICK> dialtone............
The Ronaele-tuned Ford Mustang '300e' goes slightly more than 100 miles per charge. 100 miles to the charge is more or less the current benchmark for electric vehicles be they sporty or civil.
We're pushing 1000 miles to the charge when this stuf goes public. Most commercial truck drivers will drive 600 within the alloted 10-hours a day limit for Class-A driving.
This is a huge developement for the auto industry and frees engineers from performance/fuel-economy restraints in a very big way. In ten years, when gasoline hits $10 a gallon a one cares, you could very well be taking cross-country DisneyLand trips on a single charge.
With solar panel roofing, 'carbon fiber look' solar panel hoods, and pohto-voltaic 'tint-look' rear glass, we could very well have cars capable of running indefinitely before 2030.
EEStor
EEStor Inks Deal with Lockheed Martin
Cedar Park, Texas-based EEStor signed an exclusive international deal with defense contractor Lockheed Martin, EEStor said Wednesday. Under the new deal, Lockheed Martin will integrate EEStor's ceramic batteries into military applications. EEStor claims its batteries potentially have 10 times the energy density of lead-acid batteries at half the price (see Earth2Tech post and VentureBeat post). EEStor plans to begin mass production by the end of this year.
based capacitors) are larger and unfeasible for use in smaller
applications. EEStor has also delayed production for a number of
months, with no explanation.
The lithium batteries that are presented here have not been
shown as for automotive use, so that may be a presumption on
a reader's part. Being smaller they could revolutionize every
small electronic that you currently use. Imagine a cell phone
that wouldn't need charging for a month.
Still worth celebrating, though.
The trick is preventing cascading chain reaction for the battery by proper design.
ICE hasn't changed much in 100 years. It is bit more efficient now than before with ECU, variable valve timing, and etc, but it's still only improving what is at a core inefficient process to turn energy in petrol into mechanical rotational energy.
Firstly thanks for reading my story, it's been hugely popular around the network.
Since there has been so many comments, I will try and address some of your questions.
Even with a tenfold increase in battery life, these new Li-Ion batteries would not compared to the energy density (in kilojoules per gram) when compared to octane (read, petrol).
By my calculation a standard Li-Ion batteries comes out at around 500 joules per gram, as such this battery could be up to 5000 joules per gram.
Compare that to octane, 47,000 joules per gram, this still gives it about 10 as much energy per unit weight as these improved batteries.
Octane can be generated as a biofuel, which (at least in theory) makes it carbon neutral.
In regard to electric cars, it is my opinion the best technology for electric cars is still hydrogen based fuel cells (although methanol fuel cells are pretty good).
However it could still be great for laptops, ipods etc, were fuel cells aren't practical.
-- Alex Serpo, ZDNet Australia.
It is true that we might use carbon-based fuel in the various electric plant to power up these cars, but then those CO2 generating plants will become a point source which are easier to control. If gasoline or petrols were used by cars, the CO2 emissions would be everywhere and they cannot be captured easily. Whereas if those CO2 comes from power plants, they can be easily recaptured, like producing baking powder (as reported earlier in CNET), or can be used to enhance production of biodiesel from algal cultures where CO2 is recaptured, and still others that can convert CO2 into fuel building blocks by the use of catalysts, water and lots of concentrated sunshine. The point is that if CO2 emissions are pinpoint rather than scattered, it is easier to deal with. Besides, the conversion efficiencies of power plants are much better than internal combustion engines. And we don't need to literally use fossil fuels to generate electricity. We have alternatives that are cheaper than nuclear sources such as those solar thermal plants, wave, tidal, hydroelectric, underwater ocean or sea currents, geothermal, wind and biomass energy to name a few.
Commuting to work is one of the major producer of carbon dioxide. If these are replaced with electric cars that are zero emissions which will be possible with increased range, then it would be revolutionary if the price of these new batteries become affordable. The use of all zero emission vehicles for daily commuting would truly have dramatic impact on carbon emissions. At a good range of 400 miles, that would even include the out of town escapades and vacation. Imagine the Aptera vehicle that gets 120 miles to a charge, and could now be extended to 1,200 miles. Now I can commute to Canada from California without having to pay for blood oil.
Still another uses for these batteries would be for energy storage to even out the variabilities of wind or solar.
So you will only need 1/3 the energy to move the vehicle the same distance due to increased efficiency.
Now suddenly the gap isn't so big!
- Now how about that Mr. Fusion?
- by Icehearted January 28, 2008 1:30 AM PST
- I remember hearing recently that researchers are also finding ways to make fuel from garbage. Breakthroughs like these are really amazing! I just hope they keep it reasonable as far as pricing goes when these things hit the commercial market. A monopoly does not a good MSRP make.
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