Helen Knight, technology reporter
The humble hairbrush could hold the answer to building fast-charging electric car batteries.
Existing batteries used to power electric cars take up to eight hours to charge, compared to the few minutes it takes to fill a tank with petrol. While fast-charging units that can fill up a car in around 30 minutes are available, Amy Prieto and colleagues at Colorado State University in Fort Collins have now built a prototype battery with hairbrush-like electrodes that can be charged in just a few minutes.
Lithium-ion batteries are the most popular devices for powering electric cars and portable electronic gadgets thanks to their high energy density and low weight. The batteries consist of a graphite anode and lithium cathode, with an electrolyte sandwiched between them. Lithium ions travel through the electrolyte from the anode to the cathode and back again during discharging and recharging. But this design limits the speed at which batteries can re-charge.
Prieto's battery contains nanowire anodes made of copper antimonide. The large surface area of the nanowires means they can store twice as many lithium ions as the same amount of graphite, says Prieto. The nanowires are bunched together like the bristles of a hair brush, coated in electrolyte, and finally surrounded with a lithium cathode.
The team have built a prototype the size of a cellphone, which takes 12 minutes to recharge, compared to two hours for a conventional battery of the same size, Prieto announced at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, California this week. She has founded a company, Prieto Battery, to commercialise the technology.
The humble hairbrush could hold the answer to building fast-charging electric car batteries.
Existing batteries used to power electric cars take up to eight hours to charge, compared to the few minutes it takes to fill a tank with petrol. While fast-charging units that can fill up a car in around 30 minutes are available, Amy Prieto and colleagues at Colorado State University in Fort Collins have now built a prototype battery with hairbrush-like electrodes that can be charged in just a few minutes.
Lithium-ion batteries are the most popular devices for powering electric cars and portable electronic gadgets thanks to their high energy density and low weight. The batteries consist of a graphite anode and lithium cathode, with an electrolyte sandwiched between them. Lithium ions travel through the electrolyte from the anode to the cathode and back again during discharging and recharging. But this design limits the speed at which batteries can re-charge.
Prieto's battery contains nanowire anodes made of copper antimonide. The large surface area of the nanowires means they can store twice as many lithium ions as the same amount of graphite, says Prieto. The nanowires are bunched together like the bristles of a hair brush, coated in electrolyte, and finally surrounded with a lithium cathode.
The team have built a prototype the size of a cellphone, which takes 12 minutes to recharge, compared to two hours for a conventional battery of the same size, Prieto announced at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, California this week. She has founded a company, Prieto Battery, to commercialise the technology.
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