2023-05-03 06:12:44
At the recent Shanghai Auto Show, the world’s largest battery maker announced a battery it claims might power electric aircraft or propel electric vehicles (EVs) over 1,000 kilometers on a single charge.
CATL, which makes a third of the world’s electric vehicle batteries, shared few details regarding the technology but said it would start mass production later this year.
It’s the latest in a series of big announcements for an industry that is booming as the world shifts to electrification.
Battery design has been likened to a gold rush as researchers push the boundaries of materials chemistry to develop batteries that are lighter, longer-lasting, safer, cheaper and charge faster.
Better batteries mean more affordable cars, cheaper home electricity and a way to travel overseas without emitting tons of carbon dioxide.
“If you think regarding our electrified lives, if you take away the batteries, none of this is possible,” said Adam Best, a principal research scientist at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).
So, here’s how battery technology has improved over the past decade, and where it’s headed in the future.
Electric cars can travel 1000 kilometers per charge?
The amount of energy these batteries store per kilogram, their specific energy, has gradually improved since they were developed regarding 50 years ago.
Their applications have expanded from consumer electronics in the 1990s, to electric vehicles in 2006, to large-scale grid storage in 2012.
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As the number of applications increases, so do the types of lithium-ion batteries. One might be designed to be cheaper, another to hold more energy, and a third to charge faster.
While we often talk regarding electric vehicle batteries in general terms, different models and brands use different types, equating to the difference between a V8 performance engine and an economical four-cylinder engine.
For example, standard-range EVs use lithium-ion batteries with lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) chemistry, while longer-range vehicles tend to use nickel-cobalt-aluminum or nickel-cobalt-manganese.
The main measure of how much energy a battery holds is its specific energy, measured in watt-hours per kilogram.
Most EV batteries have a specific energy of less than 300 Wh/kg.
CATL says its new battery has a specific energy of almost double that, at 500 Wh/kg.
Sadly, the company didn’t release many other details, including how much the battery will cost, how many times it can be recharged, and how much power it can generate (how quickly stored energy can be used).
CATL said the new design will go into mass production later this year and be used in civil aviation and road transport.
If the battery is as good as it claims to be, it will mean electric cars can be driven from Sydney to Melbourne on a single charge.
Or, since most people don’t need that range, it would mean smaller battery packs and cheaper EVs.
How to Make Better Batteries
A better battery design is made up of two factors: a chemical factor and an engineering factor.
The chemical factors involve tweaking the components of the battery, while the engineering factors are regarding the shape and structure of the battery itself.
Batteries store energy in the form of chemical potential. As their stored energy increases, so does the challenge of keeping them stable, Dr Best said.
“You’re fighting to have something that’s electrochemically stable, thermally stable, and chemically stable. It has to be able to conduct ions across different temperature ranges.”
Typically, improvements are made by tweaking the materials of the cathode, anode, or electrolyte to reduce weight, increase conductivity, or reduce cost.
However, improving one metric often comes at the expense of the other.
For example, battery makers have developed a sodium-ion battery that doesn’t use lithium, so it’s half the price.
But it has a lower energy density, around 200 Wh/kg.
For its latest battery, CATL appears to have developed a highly conductive electrolyte gel that reduces weight.
In a statement, it said the battery uses “condensates” as electrolytes to improve the cell’s electrical conductivity and uses “innovative” anode materials.
“The condensed matter battery of the Ningde era uses highly conductive biomimetic condensed matter electrolytes to build a micron-scale self-adaptive network structure, which can adjust the interaction force between the chains, thereby improving the conductivity of the battery.”
What batteries do I need to fly?
Small aircraft currently equipped with electrical systems operate at specific energies of 250-270 Wh/kg.
For electric aviation to really take off, that number will need to hit around 400-500 watt-hours per kilogram, experts say.
But UNSW engineering professor John Fletcher believes high specific energy isn’t the only requirement for electric aviation batteries.
“You need a battery that can provide power for takeoff,” he said.
“You need regarding a three-to-one ratio of takeoff power to cruise power.”
In other words, an aviation battery needs to provide regarding three times the power that keeps the aircraft cruising in the air to make the aircraft take off.
Since CATL hasn’t given any more details regarding its new battery, we don’t know its power output.
It said it was working with several unnamed companies to use the new condensed matter batteries to develop electric airliners.
Where will battery development go next?
One of the most promising emerging technologies is solid-state batteries, which use solid electrolyte materials instead of the liquid or gel used in traditional lithium-ion batteries.
A solid electrolyte greatly improves the energy density and safety of batteries because it avoids the flammable solvents used in liquid electrolytes.
CSIRO’s Dr Best said: “Solid-state batteries will have a role to play in replacing those liquid batteries that can … lead to gas and fire.”
At the end of last year, NASA announced the development of a solid-state battery with an energy density of 500 Wh/kg.
Meanwhile, SVOLT, a subsidiary of China’s Great Wall Motor, has created a solid-state sulfide battery pack with an energy density of 350-400 Wh/kg.
In addition, many people are excited regarding batteries that use oxygen from the air as a cathode, a move that would quadruple the energy density of existing lithium-ion batteries.
In February, researchers at the Illinois Institute of Technology and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory announced that they had developed a lithium-air battery with an energy density of up to 1,200 Wh/kg.
Dr Best said the batteries were still a long way from commercialization.
“The opportunity for lithium-air batteries is huge, but the chemistry of how oxygen reacts with lithium is really hard to control.”
“If this works, this device would be a huge breakthrough.”
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