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from the it-keeps-going-and-going-and-going-and-going-and-going.... dept.
Zhongwei Chen, a chemical engineering professor at Waterloo, and a team of graduate students have created a low-cost battery using silicon that boosts the performance and life of lithium-ion batteries. Their findings are published in the latest issue of Nature Communications .
Waterloo's silicon battery technology promises a 40 to 60 per cent increase in energy density, which is important for consumers with smartphones, smart homes and smart wearables.
The environmentally safe technology could also make dramatic improvements for hybrid and electric vehicles. The findings could mean an electric car may be driven up to 500 kilometres between charges and the smaller, lighter batteries may significantly reduce the overall weight of vehicles.
Current lithium-ion batteries normally use graphite anodes. The Waterloo engineers found that silicon anode materials have a much higher capacity for lithium and are capable of producing batteries with almost 10 times more energy.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 29 2015, @07:23PM
Stories in the media track with dollars spent on research. So, you hear a lot about graphene, nanotechnology, quantum computing, and batteries these days because that's where big dollars are being spent. It's repetitive, but the things they're spending dollars on are good, and can yield very good things. Contrast that with the past when dollars and headlines gravitated toward ICEs, nuclear weapons, and cigarettes.
Washington DC delenda est.