Industry news

8
Jan

Elon Musk breaks ground on Tesla’s Shanghai factory

•Elon Musk’s electric car maker acquired land for a factory on the outskirts of Shanghai for about $140 million in October.•Producing vehicles in China would reduce costs from tariffs and ocean transport for Tesla, as it faces rising competition from local electric automakers.•The Shanghai factory is expected to begin partial production in the second half of this year, according to

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4
Jan

New Sensor Reveals Lithium-Ion Batteries Can Safely Charge 5 Times Faster

Researchers at WMG at the University of Warwick have developed a new direct, precise test of Lithium-ion batteries’ internal temperatures and their electrodes potentials and found that the batteries can be safely charged up to five times faster than the current recommended charging limits. The new technology works in-situ during a battery’s normal operation without impeding its performance and it

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4
Jan

New Approach to Better Electrolytes for Next-Generation Lithium Batteries

A new approach to analyzing and designing new ion conductors — a key component of rechargeable batteries — could accelerate the development of high-energy lithium batteries, and possibly other energy storage and delivery devices such as fuel cells, researchers say. The new approach relies on understanding the way vibrations move through the crystal lattice of lithium ion conductors and correlating

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4
Jan

Chemists Develop New Way to Create Lithium Metal Electrodes for Batteries

Researchers at Yale and Donghua University in China have developed a new process for creating lithium metal that may boost the energy and capacity of rechargeable batteries. Lithium metal is considered the best option as a material for anodes in high-energy batteries, the researchers said, because of the metal’s high potential for providing large amounts of energy and capacity in

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4
Jan

New Battery Design Extends the Life of Low-Cost, Lightweight Batteries

Metal-air batteries are one of the lightest and most compact types of batteries available, but they can have a major limitation: When not in use, they degrade quickly, as corrosion eats away at their metal electrodes. Now, MIT researchers have found a way to substantially reduce that corrosion, making it possible for such batteries to have much longer shelf lives. While typical

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28
Dec

Disordered crystals are promising for future battery technology

Tiny, disordered particles of magnesium chromium oxide may hold the key to new magnesium battery energy storage technology, which could possess increased capacity compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries, find researchers.

27
Dec

Purple bacteria ‘batteries’ turn sewage into clean energy

Purple phototrophic bacteria — which can store energy from light — when supplied with an electric current can recover near to 100 percent of carbon from any type of organic waste, while generating hydrogen gas for use as fuel.

26
Dec

Building a better battery layer by layer

A team of researchers from Shinshu University in Nagano, Japan is now closer to a thin, high-capacity lithium-ion battery that could open the gates to better energy storage systems for electric vehicles. The research team was led by professor Katsuya Teshima, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Science (hereinafter called CEES) at Shinshu University in Japan. They published

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26
Dec

Nanotubes may give the world better batteries

Rice University graduate student Gladys López-Silva holds a lithium metal anode with a film of carbon nanotubes. Once the film is attached, it becomes infiltrated by lithium ions and turns red. Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University Rice University scientists are counting on films of carbon nanotubes to make high-powered, fast-charging lithium metal batteries a logical replacement for common lithium-ion batteries. The Rice

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25
Dec

New high-capacity sodium-ion could replace lithium in rechargeable batteries

University of Birmingham scientists are paving the way to swap the lithium in lithium-ion batteries with sodium, according to research published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. Lithium-ion batteries (LIB) are rechargeable and are widely used in laptops, mobile phones and in hybrid and fully electric vehicles. The electric vehicle is a crucial technology for fighting pollution in cities

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