Electric vehicles (EVs) powered by lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are one of the solutions to the issues associated with pollution and energy crisis and zero-emissions transportation devices. However, it takes longer to recharge an EV than the gas-refilling time of a conventional fuel vehicle, which is why people are hesitant to adopt it.
But now a team of researchers has found a solution to get rid of this problem. To improve the lithium-ion battery, they have increased battery charging speed by adding copper coating and nanowire to its anode.
One of the biggest hurdles behind switching from gas-powered vehicles to battery-powered vehicles is the time taken to recharge the battery. For example, a battery vehicle takes about an hour to charge its battery from 40 percent to 80 percent. In this new effort, researchers have looked at one of the main problems with fast charging and tweaked the battery to solve the problem.
One of the major impediments to fast charging is the battery’s anode. These are mostly made of graphite and formed in a random solution, which got the attention of the researchers. Which is not a proper means of charging a lithium-ion battery. They also point out that the way content is lined up in them, the size of the gap between them is also an important issue.
To overcome this problem, they applied the first particle-level theoretical model to optimize the spatial distribution of particles of different sizes and electrode porosity. They used what they learned from the model after making changes to the standard graphite anode. They mixed it with copper and then added copper nanowires to the solution. They then heated the anode and then cooled it, allowing the solution to be more ordered by the material that clogged it.
The researchers glued the anode to a standard lithium-ion battery and then measured the time it took to charge. They found that they were able to charge the battery to 60 percent in just 5.6 minutes, with the battery charging up to 80 percent in just 11.4 minutes.
They failed to test how long it’d desire to charge to one hundred percent as doing so isn’t recommended for such batteries. The researchers failed to say what proportion of adding copper to the anode would increase the price of the battery. This study has been published in the journal Science Advances.
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