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from the probably-ready-in-about-5-years dept.
The Telegraph and Stanford News are reporting a new aluminium-ion cell which is hoped will outperform conventional lithium-ion cells.
As well as charging in 60 seconds, it is claimed, the cell will withstand 7,500 charge/discharge cycles compared with lithium-ion's 1,000 cycles.
Apart from a low 2-volt output, "our battery has everything else you'd dream that a battery should have: inexpensive electrodes, good safety, high-speed charging, flexibility and long cycle life," states Hongjie Dai, Professor of chemistry at Stanford University.
"We have developed a rechargeable aluminium battery that may replace existing storage devices, such as alkaline batteries, which are bad for the environment, and lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames."
The research is due to be published in Nature.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gnuman on Wednesday April 08 2015, @01:24AM
If you had a 2000 mAh 5V battery of this type, roughly that of an iPhone 6, that's 36,000 J of energy. To charge such a thing in 60 seconds would require power of 600 W.
Well, it actually requires more power than 600W since the process is not 100% efficient.
But now imagine charging a Tesla 56kWh battery. That's about 200MJ. Charging that in 60s requires a power source that can deliver about 3.5MW. That's a 10,000V line at 350 Amps. Maybe 400A with converter loses. That's same power requirements as to power this 20m tall mining shovel that can scoop 100 tonnes at a time. So yes, you can charge 1 Tesla every 60s, but the plug is larger than the car!!
http://engine-market.ua/uploads/newart/editor/01-2013/d50cad934641d27caa802b55ae0bdf50.jpg [engine-market.ua]
https://mining.cat.com/cda/files/3105278/7/ [cat.com] (PDF)
(Score: 1) by dbitter1 on Wednesday April 08 2015, @01:00PM
ObDisclaimer: I am a Tesla owner.
One of Elon's concepts is to offer recharges for his vehicles quickly at high-power electric "gas stations" called Superchargers. Currently, they charge at a rate of up to 120KW, and every one is fed by a relatively beefy 3 phase circuit. The "up to" part is a limitation of the battery, not the power source/line voltage directly. I'd love to see a higher power charge... if it is possible, they would be the ones to build it, and I think the Grid would be supportive, or at least close to capacity.
BTW they don't make 56KWH batteries- just 60 and 85.