Charging the batteries of an electric car from 40 percent to 80 percent can take almost an hour. A new battery can cut that time down to just over eleven minutes, reports Techxplore.
A research team in China accomplished the feat. The researchers analyzed where the worst bottlenecks in the charging process for lithium-ion batteries are and concluded that the battery's anode is a big culprit.
They discovered that the graphite used as an anode in the batteries is not optimal for allowing electricity to flow into the battery. The researchers tested heating up and then cooling down the anode to change the graphite structure. Then they also covered the anode with copper and pulled copper wires through it.
The result was a battery that could be charged much faster than today's batteries. It took just over five minutes to charge an empty battery to 60 percent in tests. An ordinary battery only came up to 40 percent charge simultaneously. Then charging the new battery to 80 percent took just over eleven minutes compared to almost an hour for today's batteries.
Kent Olofsson
