Fast-Charging Batteries with a “Holey” Electrode

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Replacing the graphite used in conventional battery electrodes with “a network of tin-oxide nanoparticles” could reduce battery charging time from hours to minutes.  An energy storage device combining the advantages of batteries and capacitors is a long-term goal for researchers, and a multi-national discovery may help expedite that goal. Graphite anodes and cathodes, as used in most lithium batteries today, limit storage capacities to 372 milliampere hours per gram (mA·h/g), the theoretical maximum of graphite. By comparison, an Energizer Ultimate Lithium AA battery holds about 3,000 mAh and weighs 14.5 grams (or about 207 mA h/g). A typical rechargeable AA battery holds only 750 to 900 mAh (around 54 to 64 mA h/g).  This limit “hinders significant advances in battery technology,” according to Vilas Pol, Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University. There, Pol, postdoctoral research associate Vinodkumar Etacheri, and other researchers internationally have experimented with a “porous interconnected” tin-oxide-based anode, giving twice the theoretical charging capacity of graphite.  Not …