Cornell University engineers have developed a rechargeable lithium-ion battery in less than five minutes. In practice, it is the fastest charging battery in the world. So goodbye to autonomy anxiety?

“The fear of running out of power or stopping at a charging station for a long time to get to the intended destination is the biggest obstacle to the spread of electric vehicles. However, now we have found a way to charge batteries at a very high speed.”explains Linden Archer, a professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Ithaca, New York, and project leader.

The smaller the battery, the faster it charges

“If you can charge the batteries in five minutes, you can use an electric car with absolute peace of mind. In addition, you will no longer need huge batteries that offer 500 km of autonomy. You can get by with something smaller because you’ll charge in just a few minutes. Which you know has advantages in price and weight”, continues Linden Archer. A strategy that Tesla and Elon Musk have already explored, with the manager repeatedly insisting that an electric car with an autonomy of more than 1,000 km “it was no use” AND “will only make cars heavier, keeping prices too high”.
But how do we arrive at this scenario? The answer to this question can be found in the article of the research group entitled “Fast charging and long-term storage in lithium-ion batteries”, published in the scientific journal Joule. The lead author is Shuo Jin, a PhD student in chemical and biomolecular engineering.

The secret lies in indium

“Lithium-ion batteries are one of the most relevant solutions for powering electric cars and smartphones”explains Shuo Jin, “They are relatively light, quite reliable and quite energy efficient. However, they take hours to charge, and they are not capable of handling large current peaks. Using indium can solve this problem »he adds.
Indium is a chemical element with atomic number 49 a soft metal with properties similar to aluminum and zinc that exhibits some radioactivity, but so weak that it is not considered dangerous. Indium has two very interesting characteristics when used for battery anodes:

• It provides an extremely low energy barrier for migration, allowing ions to move at high speeds,
• It has a low exchange current density, which is related to the rate of ion recovery in the anode.

However, this material is not without any criticism: “It should be noted that indium is quite heavy”comments Linden Archer, which poses a problem for electric cars.

Because, really, the main problem with electric cars is really weight.

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