Imagine a ‘Battery’ that Charges 100 Times Faster by Chris Clarke – Apr 16, 20130 This week, another UCLA team reports it may have found a way to address a persistent problem with supercapacitors: limitations on their effective size. Researchers at UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have found a way to use niobium oxide as a matrix to allow the fabrication of supercapacitors the size of batteries, but which could conceivably charge and deliver power hundreds of times as quickly as typical batteries can. Batteries and supercapacitors differ in the way they store...

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RICE UNIVERSITY NEWS & MEDIA MIKE WILLIAMS – NOVEMBER 1, 2012 ‘Crushed’ porous silicon anodes show dramatic increase in charge-discharge cycles Researchers at Rice University have refined silicon-based lithium-ion technology by literally crushing their previous work to make a high-capacity, long-lived and low-cost anode material with serious commercial potential for rechargeable lithium batteries. The team led by Rice engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal and research scientist Madhuri Thakur reported in Nature’s open access journal Scientific Reports on the creation of a silicon-based anode, the negative electrode of a battery, that easily achieves 600 charge-discharge cycles at 1,000 milliamp...

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New Electric Vehicle Fast Charge System Developed in Japan 5th of July 2010 * The system reaches a 50% battery charge in 3 minutes * It offers a 70% battery charge level in 7 minutes * The system will be offered by April next year One of the major issues that stands in the way of the large scale adoption of electric vehicles today is the fact that their batteries take a long time to be recharged. However, the Japanese company JFE Engineering Corp has developed a new solution for the problem, which promises to be a...

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Posted on: March 27th, 2009 by Ed Ring In a briefing last week General Motors reaffirmed their commitment to the launch of the Chevy Volt by late 2010. The primary purpose of this briefing was to discuss the benefits of lithium battery technology as well as the reasons for their choice of LG Chem to produce the first generation of batteries for the Volt. Several points are worth noting: GM is completing what will be the largest automotive battery lab in the U.S., and they intend to maintain in-house manufacturing capacity to integrate the battery cells into...

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November 25th, 2008 In what could potentially be a revolutionary breakthrough for everything from laptops to electric cars, a South Korean team of researchers have made a major discovery in Lithium-Ion battery technology. A team of researchers at South Korea`s Hanyung University, led by professor Cho Jaephil, has claimed a discovery that could extend lithium ion battery energy capacity by up to 1000% or more. The key to Jaephil`s discovery was the application of a three-dimensional porous silicon graphite material which has the ability of holding up to ten times the number of lithium ions as conventional...

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QuantumSphere a developer of advanced catalyst materials, electrode devices, and related technologies for portable power and clean-energy applications, has filed a patent for technology that extends the capacity of rechargeable lithium ion batteries up to five times. The patent filing covers a novel electrode structure enriched with nano lithium particles that increases the fuel source in a rechargeable lithium ion battery, thus increasing battery life. QuantumSphere intends to commercialize the technology to improve next-generation batteries for energy storage, consumer, and transportation applications. This news follows a previous QuantumSphere battery announcement highlighting the development of a high-rate, paper-thin,...

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September 22, 2008 SuperCapacitor-UTDallas-NanoTech-Inst.jpg But research by post-doctoral Researcher Jiyoung Oh and Research Scientist Mikhail “Mike” Kozlov at UT Dallas` NanoTech Institute offers tantalizing insights into a new, lightweight, reliable means of delivering power via the mighty supercapacitor. Supercapacitors are beefed-up electronic components that can be charged and counted on to store energy reliably for long periods. They deliver power in a smooth, steady stream safe for operating sensitive electronics. Unlike car lead batteries, which are typically heavier and bulker, capacitors and super-capacitors accumulate electric charge instead of delivering it via a chemical reaction. The team, along...

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Stanford Report, December 18, 2007 BY DAN STOBER Photos taken by a scanning electron microscope of silicon nanowires before (left) and after (right) absorbing lithium. Both photos were taken at the same magnification. The work is described in “High-performance lithium battery anodes using silicon nanowires,” published online Dec. 16 in Nature Nanotechnology. Stanford researchers have found a way to use silicon nanowires to reinvent the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power laptops, iPods, video cameras, cell phones, and countless other devices. The new technology, developed through research led by Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering,...

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December 03, 2007 Valence Technology Premieres First Intelligent, Large-Format Lithium-Ion Battery System at EVS-23 Valence Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: VLNC) unveiled its third generation of lithium-ion battery technology, EpochTM, at The International Electric Vehicle Symposium and Exposition (EVS-23), which started Sunday at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, Calif. From their press release and website: Valence believes its new generation of phosphate-based lithium-ion battery systems will move the electric vehicle industry one step closer to the Holy Grail — finding a battery solution that is safe, intelligent, lasts longer and weighs less than outdated technologies being used today....

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November 24, 2007 Maxwell Technologies, Tianjin Lishen Battery to Develop “Hybrid” Products” Combining Ultracacitors and Li-ion Batteries Maxwell Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: MXWL) and Tianjin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock Co., Ltd. , (Lishen), China`s leading producer of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, have announced an alliance to manufacture and market novel “hybrid” energy storage products combining the companies` respective ultracapacitor and li-ion battery technologies. David Schramm, Maxwell`s president and chief executive officer, said that the companies see a large market opportunity for products that leverage the complementary strengths of double layer capacitor and li-ion battery technologies. “We believe that the products...

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UCLA team creates printable batteries November 16 2007, Tom Simonite NewScientist.com news service The batteries were created by George Gruner and colleagues at the University of California in Los Angeles, US, and use the same zinc-carbon chemistry as ordinary non-rechargeable batteries. Being able to print flexible batteries onto different surfaces should prove handy for powering disposable devices, such as long-range RFID tags or small displays, the researchers say. The batteries are made from two layers containing carbon nanotubes and a third layer of zinc foil, and are less than a millimeter thick. A great many carbon nanotubes...

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Supercapacitor “battery” could lead to instant charging, long charge life Zenn Motor Co. and EEStor By John Timmer September 04, 2007 News is filtering out that a small startup company in Texas has made a breakthrough in charge storage that relies on a completely different technology: capacitors. Details are scarce, but a company that has licensed the technology suggests that it’s ready for large-scale production. For those of you who don`t remember high school physics, a capacitor stores charge by arranging two metal plates in parallel. Placing a negative charge in one of the plates will repel...

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13 August 2007 Nature News, Katharine Sanderson Nanotubes plus paper make for flexible batteries. The device, made by Pulickel Ajayan and colleagues at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, is made with cellulose – the stuff of ordinary paper – impregnated with carbon nanotubes, which act as electrodes in the battery. Batteries and supercapacitors each have their advantages. Batteries can store more electricity. But they also require a chemical reaction to transfer electrons, whereas supercapacitors don`t – they use electrostatic interactions instead, and so can charge and discharge very quickly. Ajayan thinks that his paper could be...

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High-performance Energy Storage, American Physical Society Science Daily, July 4, 2007 North Carolina State University physicists have recently deduced a way to improve high-energy-density capacitors so that they can store up to seven times as much energy per unit volume than the common capacitor. High performance capacitors would enable hybrid and electric cars with much greater acceleration, better and faster steering of rockets and spacecraft, better regeneration of electricity when using brakes in electric cars, and improved lasers, among many other electrical applications.

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July 2, 2007 Posted by Michael Kanellos Competition is getting warm in the lithium ion battery market. Both A123 Systems and Tesla Motors are marketing their batteries to car makers. A123 can count General Motors as an investor and customer. Valence’s biggest ‘name’ customer, by contrast, is Segway. Nonetheless, Kanode says a number of organizations are tinkering with its batteries and batteries from other companies. The market thus should be big enough for more than one manufacturer, he speculated. “There are 80 different companies out there testing batteries. This isn`t just benchmark testing,” he said. “The testing...

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Super Charged A new lithium-ion battery fills up fast and outlasts most gadgets July 2007 PopSci, page 36; 6-11-2007 Popular Science, Christopher Null THE SHARPEST PART of DeWalt’s DC300K cordless circular Saw isn`t the blade; it’s the new M1 Nanophosphate Battery inside. It recharges in minutes (rather than Hours) and lasts a decade (instead of a couple years) .

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May 11th 2007 by Sebastian Blanco Filed under: EV/Plug-in, ZENN There’s been lots of speculation about the EESTOR ultracapacitor and just what kind of impact – if any – it will have on the hybrid and all-electric vehicle market. Just look below at the list of stories we’ve run in the past on the EESTOR and ZENN, which is the vehicle company the EESTORs are destined for. With so much already unknown, why don`t we introduce another ultracapacitor into the mix, this one made by the Canadian company EPOD. EPOD’s ultracapacitor “can be manufactured for small scale...

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Watertown, Mass. – January 4, 2007 A123Systems batteries will be evaluated in prototype Saturn Green Line Vue plug-in hybrid SUVs later this year. GM recently announced its intention to produce a Vue Green Line plug-in hybrid SUV that has the potential to achieve double the fuel efficiency of any current SUV. There are a few paragraphs about the A123 on the Tesla Roadster blog Martin Eberhard CEO of Tesla Motors mentions the $15 million grant given to A123 Systems

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