The new discovery was made at Harvard by researchers who created a battery inspired by a simple BLT Sandwich. Tests have shown that this particular battery can be fully charged in 3 minutes and last for 20 years, more than twice as long as current EV batteries on the market.
The lithium-metal battery can be charged and discharged 10,000 times, so it is ticking all the boxes for usability and a long-term solution to improving electric vehicle (EV) car batteries.
The next step is for the startup company to produce and manufacture the battery at scale, now they have been given the licence to go ahead.
Adden Energy
The new ‘game-changing’ battery which charges in three minutes and lasts for 20 years is licenced under a company called Adden Energy and could be rolled out in possibly millions of EVs. Adden Energy, a start-up company based in Waltham, Massachusetts has now been granted a licence and $5.15 million in funding to build the battery at scale to be installed inside EVs. The battery was developed by scientists at Harvard and is lithium metal, rather than lithium-ion, which is currently the standard battery fitted to most EVs on the market.
The design concept
Incredibly, the design concept came from and was inspired by a BLT sandwich, preventing the growth of the troublesome ‘dendrites’, these a short branched extensions of a nerve cell, which is used to receive impulses from other cells at synapses which are transmitted to the cell body. Dendrites grow in lithium-metal batteries and hence shorten the lifespan of this type of battery.
With the licence awarded to Adden Energy, they will have exclusive rights to develop further and build on mass the solid-state, lithium-metal battery. These batteries will be smaller, and lighter and last 20 years instead of the current lifespan of lithium-ion batteries which degrade over time and last up to seven or eight years, depending on the usage of the battery – similar to batteries used in smartphones.
Lithium-ion batteries can be replaced, but aren’t cheap, and you could be expected to pay thousands of pounds, making it more cost-effective to just buy a new EV instead.
Let’s take this all in
The new lithium-metal battery not only can increase the lifespan of the EV you are driving, which can be up to a jaw-dropping 20 years, as opposed to only seven to eight years but also gives the same performance as the lithium-ion battery, it only takes an outstanding three minutes to fully charge with a whopping 10,000 cycles in a lifetime.
The creator
The new technology has been created by Xin Li and his team of colleagues at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS).
Adden Energy was co-founded in 2021 by Li, along with William Fitzhugh and Luhan Ye, both were primarily involved in contributing to the development of the technology as students in Li’s Harvard laboratory.
The new startup company’s first aim is to scale the battery up to a palm-sized ‘pouch cell’ which will have its components encased in an aluminium-coated film and then a further full-scale size for an electric vehicle in the next three to five years.
“We have achieved in the lab 5,000 to 10,000 charge cycles in a battery’s lifetime, compared with 2,000 to 3,000 charging cycles for even the best in class now, and we don’t see any fundamental limit to scaling up our battery technology, ‘said Li. ‘That could be a game changer.’
Lithium-metal batteries hold a lot more energy in the same volume and can charge in a fraction of the time compared to traditional lithium-ion batteries. But they are prone to the formation of ‘dendrites’, which are the cause of accelerated battery failure. Hence researchers have been developing a unique BLT-inspired design.
The whole idea which was taken from the BLT sandwich is as follows;
Think of the battery as a BLT sandwich, first comes the bread (the lithium metal anode), followed by the lettuce (a coating of graphite). Then we have the layer of tomatoes (which is the first electrolyte) and then a layer of bacon (which is the second electrolyte). Finishing off with another layer of tomatoes and the other slice of bread (the cathode)
In this design concept, the dendrites grow through the lettuce and tomato but then stop short at the bacon. The bacon barrier prevents the dendrites from pushing through and short-circuiting the battery. The battery is also self-healing, which means its chemistry allows it to backfill holes created by the dendrites.
Be ready for the stampede
This will be a very common thing in the not-too-distant future in the UK, with millions of people relying solely on a different concept in using another mode of transport, the electric car.
WOO Carz, which is based in Southampton has invested heavily in acquiring a whole range of quality used electric and used hybrid cars to meet the increasing demand in the electric car market revolution. As a much cheaper alternative than having to buy a brand new electric or hybrid car, WOO Carz are enabling customers to save thousands of pounds by purchasing nearly new electric and nearly new hybrid cars. This way the new drivers of these new ranges of electric cars will have a few years to fully get adjusted and then WOO Carz will offer an upgrade possibility if you have taken out financing to assist you with your purchase or we will happily consider a part exchange over-the-phone promise.
To find out more about what we can offer and our current deals, call us now on 02382543928 or to get a better understanding of your credit profile, click here to see what type of budget you will have available to spend on your new dream electric or hybrid car.
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