Battery that charges in seconds

Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) have developed a lithium ion battery that can be charged in a time less than that required to read this sentence and the battery of laptop or mobile based on this principle can be charged in a time less than the time you'll take to read this article!!

A new manufacturing method for lithium-ion batteries could lead to smaller, lighter batteries that can be charged in just seconds. The low charging speed with earlier batteries was due to the way ions passed through the material. The material used earlier was mostly Lithium-Cobalt. Now, with proposed Lithium-Iron-Phosphate batteries, the charge transfer will be faster as indicated by the researches carried out at MIT. The crystal structure of lithium-iron-phosphate is such that it has perfectly sized tunnels for lithium ions to move through it. So, the ion transport should be very fast as compared to the ion speed that is practically obtained in lithium-cobalt batteries. this happens because the ions need to be properly aligned to pass through in Lithium-Cobalt solution. The lithium ions face difficulty in identifying the crystal structure and cannot find the tunnel. This has been corrected by providing so called 'beltway' by coating the surface of the electrolyte by Lithium-Iron-Phosphate which guides the Lithium ions and increases the speed of ion transport drastically. The sample was found to charge and discharge in 9 seconds. That means the standard battery of laptop, if modified by this principle, will take 6-8 minutes to charge!

Though the standard Lithium-Cobalt battery can store more charges than the new devised one for the same amount of mass, but that is compensated by high charging rates. It is cheaper too. Also, it does not lose the ability to charge over time as do the standard Lithium-Cobalt batteries. Another advantage is that the Lithium-Iron-Phosphate batteries will not suffer from overheating as was the case with Lithium-Cobalt battery.

If successful, this battery will find its greatest utilization in regenerative braking since brakes are applied for very small interval of time and a great amount of energy is wasted in the process. If the charging speed is very fast, the energy can be stored in battery.