Litihium Battery advances for Electric Vehicles.
As Better Place announce their first switching stations Р[see http://goo.gl/EdYYp about advances in Israel including an unauthorised video of the new facility) the race is hotting up to develop a long life and cheap Litiium Battery for use in Electric Vehicles. 
The short range and cost of the battery in most Electric Vehicles are the two main obstacles to take up of the growing list of EV’s and hybrids that are being made available around the world. Much research and development is now concentrating on advances in technology, replacating the growth in mobile phones and PCs following the development of Ii-ion batteries for mobile devices.
Scientists from Fraunhofer have replaced a battery box for lithium – ion batteris with a lightweight component. This new housing will save weight, will not sustain damage in an accident and can be mass produced. These important characteristics are critical if widespread take up is to be achieved around the world.Weight is important as accelleration requires considerable energy expenditure.
The lighter the electric vehicle. the longer it can be on the road without having to be plugged back into a power outlet. Researchers who built the Artega GT, a prototype where the electric motor is located at the read of the vehicle, are working with colleagues from the Fraunhofer Institutes for Mechanics of Materials IWM, and the Ernst-Mach Insitut EMI , have developed a housing that weighs only 35 kilorams.
The 16 litium – ion modules are protected from humidity by a semi- permeable membrane to equalise pressure, thus allowing batteries to ‘breathe’.The techniques use Fibre composites, with a process chain designed to allow many steps to be run simultaneously. This process allows a production line approach to be used, when all the individual components are then assembled and pressed together in a ‘ one-shot process’.
Low Cost Lithium Batteries
In another development, the California Lithium Battery Inc ( CalBattery) recently announced that they have entered into an agreement with the Argonne National Laboratoy to commercialise a breakthrough low cost ‘GEN3’ Lithium battery.
This new transformational battery will offer the highest energy density and longest cycle of any lithium battery made today. CalBattery believe that it will be able to manufacture this GEN3 battery in the US with a comparable cost reduction of 70%.
This advance uses silicon in the battery anode. The Silicon has the ability to absorb lithium by a factor of 10. but until now has been to unstable for battery use. ANL tests on a newly patented process that embeds nano silion into graphene through a novel vapour depositation process called CVD.
Other developments that are under construction include using battery material chemistries and applying them into a superior Very Large Format (VLF) battery for energy storage and EV’s. Dan Vogler, CTO of Ionex Energy Storage Systems said, ‘the CalBattery VLF factor battery is ideally suited for grid – sacle 1- 25MW energy storage systems and/or in heavy duty EV’s.’√جª¬ø
Originally posted 2012-03-19 00:00:00.
