MIT engineers are reporting the discovery of an instantly rechargeable battery. The work was lead by Gerbrand Ceder, the Richard P. Simmons. The battery was made of the same popular material that most batteries are made of, namely lithium. Before discussing this discovery, let’s try to understand what batteries are.
In a nutshell, batteries are objects that have built in capability for electrochemical reaction. Electrochemical is any chemical reaction that produces electrons. So if you put few chemicals together that produces electrons you have made a battery.
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Once electrons are produced, power is produced by the flow of electrons from one to another (positive to negative). So when a light bulb is connected to a battery, electrons starts flowing from one end to the other, and in process the light is turned on.
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Lithium batteries are the most popular kind of batteries. They are made of lithium cobalt oxide and carbon (Lithium cobalt oxide as negative and carbon is positive electrode).
Now that we know what batteries are lets dive into the new discovery. One of the good features of lithium batteries is that they retain a lot of energy. Hence, they are used everywhere. However, it has a very critical drawback. It takes a long time to charge (anybody who have recently recharged their mobile phone would know this). This new discovery will solve this problem. As indicated above this new battery recharges instantaneously.
Technology behind this discovery is simple. For years scientists believed that the reason behind batteries taking so long to charge, was that electrons on lithium travel slow. However, new computing tools helped us understand that it is not the case. In fact, computational models have shown that electrons should flow pretty fast.
Furthermore, investigation by Cedar had revealed that actually the electrons move fast only if they travel by tunnels accessible from the surface. So Cedar and Byoungwoo Kang created a new surface on the outside of the battery’s material that allows the electron to flow faster. You can imagine electrons like balls traveling on the surface and getting diverted to these tunnels.
This technique allows the electrons to travel faster, and hence getting charged quicker. In fact, according to MIT news website Cedar and Byoungwoo has created a battery that could be recharged in about 10 to 20 seconds. Bravo!
