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Transportation Power

Penn State Engineers Are Developing An Inexpensive, Thermally-Modulated Battery For Electric Cars (psu.edu) 117

Posted by BeauHD from the currently-in-the-works dept.
schwit1 shares a report from Penn State University: Range anxiety, the fear of running out of power before being able to recharge an electric vehicle, may be a thing of the past, according to a team of Penn State engineers who are looking at lithium iron phosphate batteries that have a range of 250 miles with the ability to charge in 10 minutes. "We developed a pretty clever battery for mass-market electric vehicles with cost parity with combustion engine vehicles," said Chao-Yang Wang, William E. Diefenderfer Chair of mechanical engineering, professor of chemical engineering and professor of materials science and engineering, and director of the Electrochemical Engine Center at Penn State. "There is no more range anxiety and this battery is affordable." The researchers also say that the battery should be good for 2 million miles in its lifetime.

They report today (Jan. 18) in Nature Energy that the key to long-life and rapid recharging is the battery's ability to quickly heat up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, for charge and discharge, and then cool down when the battery is not working. The battery uses a self-heating approach previously developed in Wang's center. The self-heating battery uses a thin nickel foil with one end attached to the negative terminal and the other extending outside the cell to create a third terminal. Once electrons flow it rapidly heats up the nickel foil through resistance heating and warm the inside of the battery. Once the battery's internal temperature is 140 degrees F, the switch opens and the battery is ready for rapid charge or discharge. [...] Because of the self-heating, the researchers said they do not have to worry about uneven deposition of lithium on the anode, which can cause lithium spikes that are dangerous.
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Penn State Engineers Are Developing An Inexpensive, Thermally-Modulated Battery For Electric Cars More

Penn State Engineers Are Developing An Inexpensive, Thermally-Modulated Battery For Electric Cars

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  • I'll take a regular battery, 250 miles still won't get you far.

    • Re:No Thanks (Score:5, Interesting)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @09:32PM (#60966474)

      I'll take a regular battery, 250 miles still won't get you far.

      Seems like a good trade off if it can be recharged in 10 minutes vs. all night for a regular battery. That's a quick pee and snack break (hopefully, one then the other) at a charging station. And maybe they can two batteries in the car...

      • Gas cars empty their tanks and refill them to full because they can buy gasoline only at the gas station

        We battery car owners top up the tank every night. Takes typically a couple of hours most days. But, even after driving home after a long drive of with nearly empty battery, the battery is full next day morning.

        • And thar is completely missing the point of when you want to drive more than 125 miles and back on a single day.

          • Or 62.5 miles and back after the battery was used for a few years.

          • Sure, if you're a professional driver, you'll need a more suitable vehicle to cover long distances. Not everyone is one of those, though.

          • The average commute in the US is 16 miles. The idea that the majority of drivers are going to need to go beyond the range of most EVs is just bullshit. And it's not like ICE engines are going to disappear tomorrow, they'll be on the road for a few decades to come, as battery capacity rises. At some point the two curves are going to meet. The oil companies certainly know this, as they look ahead to the fuel-to-feedstock ratio, which sits at 60%/40% right now, trends towards flipping.

            The fact is that somethin

            • It's not the daily commute, it's the weekend trip or summer vacation that pushes the range issue (although with more/faster charging stations this has become less of an issue). I'm not sure why people constantly bring up 'daily commute' as though that is as far as a car travels.
        • If you are home and have somewhere to plug in.
          • That is true. But it is going to change.

            When the gasoline cars were introduced gasoline was sold at drugstores. The gasoline refueling infrastructure developed as the demand increased. Same way as the market share of BEVs increase, support infrastructure will increase.

            Gasoline is a hazardous substance, and one needs hazmat license to set up a new gas station, investment is high and barrier to entry is high. Level 2 charging, on the other hand is quite simple. 240 V 20Amp or 30 amp outlets are not all tha

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by XXongo ( 3986865 )

        I'll take a regular battery, 250 miles still won't get you far.

        I hardly ever drive 250 miles in a single day. Most days (even before the pandemic) rarely more than 50 miles. 250 mile range sounds like plenty to me.

        And if it recharges in 10 minutes (!!).

      • ...it can be recharged in 10 minutes [...] That's a quick pee and snack break (hopefully, one then the other)

        Why? Are you telling us you can't do both at the same time?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Most people would rather have a cheaper battery. I am happy with a 30-40 minute recharge time after 250 miles of driving (approximately 4 hours on the road) and it's not worth paying the huge premiums to reduce that time because it only affects me a few times a year max.

        Thousands of Euros to save an hour a year isn't worth it, especially when I can use that time to have a proper meal instead of a McBurger.

        • When we drive cross country we need to stop every hour to two hours to take a break and stretch our legs. Each stop is about 10 minutes. About every 3rd stop we top off the tank. Topping off the tank takes a few minutes more. If we could top up a battery at each stop then range would not be an issue. The real issue is availability. There are about 168,000 gas stations in the US. Each station has from 2 to 120 pumps (Bucee's). An average station has about 8 pumps so 1.3 million pumps. Charging stations are

          • The number of outlets and stations are still an order of magnitude away from being as convenient.

            I'm curious if your stats account for the proportion of charging that's done at home. I have a family member who drives an EV, and at least 95% of their charging is done at home, overnight. I (baselessly) assume that the situation would be similar for most American EV drivers who have private parking for their vehicle. If there's just a twentieth of the demand for dedicated, publicly-accessible charging facilities as there is for gas stations, the situation doesn't look so dire.

            Rather than "raw number of

            • There are two cultural factors that make fast EV charging problematic. First, the infrastructure to upgrade homes to 240v or 480v hookups is easy to see at garage-level but scales to quite an expense nationwide. It is not just the electrician's work on-site, but the electric company's grid upgrade from the neighborhood transformer up to the power grid that supplies it. Second, people expect a ten-minute recharge at their filling station, just like a gasoline pump, but they carry that expectation home wit

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tragedy ( 27079 )

            I've often thought that it would be an interesting idea to actually have sections of contactless charging rail built into some of the most used long range sections of road. That way cars equipped with a contactless charger in the undercarriage. It doesn't even necessarily need to be contactless. There are ways it could be automated so that sections of full contact rail are only live when a car is going over (although it would have to be able to deal with detritus, gravel, sand, etc.) That way cars on long t

            • Years ago, I wondered why you couldn't put your automobile on a train car, and let the train take you across the continent, or wherever you're going. Impractical the way things are set up now, but...

        • Most people would rather have a cheaper battery. I am happy with a 30-40 minute recharge time after 250 miles of driving (approximately 4 hours on the road) and it's not worth paying the huge premiums to reduce that time because it only affects me a few times a year max.

          Thousands of Euros to save an hour a year isn't worth it, especially when I can use that time to have a proper meal instead of a McBurger.

          I'd rather have the short refuel time. It's a total game changer because thinking about and planning ahead for charging is essentially eliminated. Like for gas cars today, I would be able to notice that my car is low on fuel and find a gas station and recharge at the last moment, and I can do that almost anywhere I happen to be. It's the ability to never have to plan ahead and not have to change my plans to fit refueling that is a game changer. This would affect my daily schedule everyday.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rhipf ( 525263 )

          From the summary I gathered that these batteries are actually cheaper to produce than the current Li batteries in production.

          "We developed a pretty clever battery for mass-market electric vehicles with cost parity with combustion engine vehicles," said Chao-Yang Wang, William E. Diefenderfer Chair of mechanical engineering,

          I interpreted this to mean that the cost of using these batteries would mean that cars would sell for roughly the same an internal combustion car does. If this is the case then they would be cheaper than current Li batteries since current electric cars sell at a premium over ICE cars.
          So not only are you getting faster charging times but you are getting a lower cost car than current Li

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tflf ( 4410717 )

        I'll take a regular battery, 250 miles still won't get you far.

        Seems like a good trade off if it can be recharged in 10 minutes vs. all night for a regular battery. That's a quick pee and snack break (hopefully, one then the other) at a charging station. And maybe they can two batteries in the car...

        Would work for me. 250 miles is 3.5 to 4 hours driving on most major highways in North America. The 10 minute recharge time is about how long it takes to do a bit of walking, hit the washroom and refill the coffee mug. Likely close enought to the time required for a pit-stop with an ICE for most people.
        I keep hoping these projections would include severe weather factoring. The Canadian prairies, for example, see some very severe swings in temperature over the cours of a year. Lows down t

    • You realize that 250 is an arbitrary number that is entirely dependent on how big a battery pack you decide to buy. It's not a theoretical limitation or anything, just I suppose that 10 minutes of recharging is a nice round number and evidently 60/10*250 = 1500 mph charging rate is what they have been able to achieve.

      • Re: No Thanks (Score:5, Informative)

        by Åke Malmgren ( 3402337 ) on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @02:12AM (#60966890)
        A big battery can recharge at the same speed as a small one though, provided that enough power is available. The charging speed is the rate of the chemical reactions involved, which stays the same whether you're charging a single cell, or thousands of them at once. Cumulative thermal effects can change this somewhat, but the basic idea stands.

        • It's more complicated than that.
          A small battery may have a single string of cells (a number of cells in series). Charging speed is limited to the amount of current one cell can take.
          A larger-capacity battery will have several of these strings in parallel. Charging speed is (the amount of current one cell can take * the number of strings).

          This is why electric cars can charge at 150 kW, while attempting to charge my cordless drill at that rate would result in a fire.

          • Yes, but if you have one cell which can be charged in 10 minutes, you can charge a 1000 cell battery made of those in the same amount of time. That's what I meant by "speed". The power they can absorb depends on the total capacity of course, and how they're configured in serial and parallel groups only affects how much of the power needs to be supplied as voltage, and how much as current.

      • You realize that 250 is an arbitrary number that is entirely dependent on how big a battery pack you decide to buy.

        Because batteries have a significantly lower energy per volume and mass compared to diesel fuel or gasoline, by something like two orders of magnitude, the limit on how much range one can have will be limited by how much weight the vehicle frame will hold. Even if we assume an order of magnitude better efficiency with electric vs. ICE that still makes 100 kilos of fuel turn into a ton of battery for the same range. Because the energy consumed is dependent on mass moved, and aerodynamic drag that will be d

    • it'll take you about 250 miles (over 3 hours of driving at an average speed of 70mph - always time for a 10 minute break).... you didn't think that post through, just a knee jerk reaction.
    • Uh huh. And your 'regular battery' will take all day to recharge. Meanwhile, if this lives up to the hype, will go ~250 miles -- then you take a WHOLE TEN MINUTES to recharge it. Even if it takes a WHOLE TWENTY MINUTES to recharge it, it's still better than waiting ALL DAY for it to recharge. Then you're off for another 250 miles.
    • Uh, the Tesla 3 has a range of 250. Not sure why you are so down on the range of this particular battery...

  • Time to market? (Score:3)

    by berchca ( 414155 ) on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @09:08PM (#60966432) Homepage

    I suppose someday in the far future, we'll look back and say, "yeah, I remember when this new technology was announced..."

    • I suppose someday in the far future, we'll look back and say, "yeah, I remember when this new technology was announced..."

      I still remember when I read about SSD and OLED technology on slashdot when they were in their infancy, not unlike this article.

      • The performance and cost of SSDs are really impressive and I think they've achieved their promise. OLEDs? If they had improved at the same pace as SSDs, there wouldn't be any more LCDs (just as LCDs have replaced CRTs) and overall costs would be a quarter or less of what an LCD costs now. I should say that I'm bullish on OLEDs - I've been really impressed with the current state of the art, but I'm expecting to start seeing costs drop much more significantly any time now. I know there are issues with LED
      • Slashdot talks about way more advances that never amount to anything. You are just cherry picking the ones that did.

    • If it's current formulation and manufacturing costs are lower than existing battery technology and perform better then it would be out as soon as possible. However, considering they are still just being worked on in the lab, there is still a lot of work to be done. Additionally, there is a good chance that developing this chemistry will require several revisions (similar to lithium–sulfur batteries) before being mature enough to bring to market.

      TL;DR: New high density battery chemistries have thus f

    • The idea of heating it to 140F or charging and discharging is so alien to me, it has always(?) been the case that heat killed batteries.

  • We are... (Score:3)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @09:16PM (#60966444)
    Penn State!

    • Penn State!

      I have a daughter in her senior year and a daughters boyfriend that has already been hired at Lockheed Martin.

  • A bonus on already-existing advantages (Score:3)

    by Dasher42 ( 514179 ) on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @10:03PM (#60966530)

    I think that people underestimate the already-existing advantages of electric cars. This claim to cost-parity with combustion engines sounds great, but even prior to that:

    * The drive-train of electric cars features far fewer moving parts, and are proving quite durable. There are Teslas with mileage nearing 500,000, still going strong. In terms of cost of ownership, electric cars are already quite affordable just in terms of life-cycle and maintenance, particularly if you go for liquid-cooled batteries, like Tesla and Chevrolet have.

    * If range anxiety is your chief concern, extended-range EVs have enough battery to drive around all-electric in the city, but a backup gas engine that runs with high efficiency. The Volt is a great example of this, and an excellent transition car for those who might not have access to charging infrastructure. I own one. I only had to fill the gas tank three times in the first year - trickle-charging from a regular electrical outlet overnight met most of my needs. The vehicle is getting around 117 MPGe and 142 MPG, which measure gas + equivalent BTUs for electrical generation or pure gas mileage. The Volt is highly underestimated - you can easily go electric most of the time with it, without any worry about roadtrips anywhere. They're affordable used, too.

    * The improvement to air quality has huge externalities. If we counted healthcare costs due to air pollution, electric cars and renewable energy generation would already easily pay for themselves on that count alone. No, the technologies aren't perfect, but they are flexible to future upgrades, and the technology is improving incredibly rapidly. This article is a case in point.

    Really, the up-front costs for a *new* vehicle is the only hard pill to swallow, if one doesn't count the likely longevity of the vehicle.

    Most of the arguments on the internet against EVs just don't match up to my actual experience of them. Ah, Slashdot, once the place that would be first to call out industries in hiding from changes whose time has come.

    • With the Volt, are there any adverse effects to not burning the gasoline in the tank? If a cares it's too long, it often can have issues when you do finally crank it back up. Wondering if there are any downsides to a full tank of gas sitting there for a year?

      • My friend had one and the car is smart enough to burn off the gas if for no other reason than it's getting old.

        Here you go, a whole article about it:
        https://www.wsj.com/articles/B... [wsj.com]

        (Wow, over 10 years old!)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cunniff ( 264218 )

        The Volt's management software will inform the owner when the gasoline is getting stale and require them to burn it down if it gets old enough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      • I believe the Volt does a quick maintenance cycle monthly and a tank empty every six months. It has a pressurized tank too (to keep the gas fresh).

        I have a BMW i3, and I don't believe it ever empties the tank, but the claim is that the gas will keep. I only have a 40-65 mile electric range (winter vs spring/fall), and end up emptying the tank every few months (though during the time of the year I get 55+ miles electric I do hit the monthly ten minute gas cycle sometimes).

    • Do you use a fuel stabilizer? Leaving fuel in the tank for 4 months at a time is likely to be very detrimental to the engine.

    • Yet they have already done the study, and EVs require more service on average. My last three ICEs I did nothing but change the oil and brakes.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GlennC ( 96879 )

      I'm currently considering the Volt, as I have a longer than average commute (about 45 miles each way) and therefore would likely either trickle-charge overnight or make use of the auxiliary engine.

      However, I'm currently working from home so I am in no real hurry to replace my current vehicle. The upside is that even once the pandemic clears I will most likely only have to go into my office two or three days a week so the need for a new vehicle may be lessened.

    • So, is the Volt still in production? If not, why not?

  • vs my 480mi range on my ICE vehicle that 'charges' in about 1 minute

    • I would much rather have the 250/10 as long as it's at the right price point. There are other advantages to electric, and I'm not just talking about environmental ones.

      It's not like I would ever need to charge it away from home unless I was driving cross-country, and even then I wouldn't mind having to stop once every 3-4 hours to stretch my legs while it recharges. Having to stop once every 1-2 hours would be painful on a long trip, but not once every 3-4.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The EV can charge in your garage overnight. Much more convenient unless you're constantly driving cross-country.

    • maybe change your watch, its not working properly for timing things
    • Do you a service that will refill your tank every night and have a "full tank" every morning?

  • Young Aussie folk think nothing of driving 1000km for a week away. They need a battery that can power a car for the time it takes a bladder to fill and can charge in the time it takes a bladder to empty.

    It looks like a car based on these batteries could just about do it. Many people who own such an electric would no longer feel the need to have a second car or to hire a car for the occasional long trip.

    Bring 'em on. If the price was right Australia's woeful uptake in electric cars would then improve.

  • old tech (Score:3)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @11:40PM (#60966710)

    >"according to a team of Penn State engineers who are looking at lithium iron phosphate batteries that have a range of 250 miles with the ability to charge in 10 minutes. "We developed a pretty clever battery for mass-market electric vehicles"

    Note- lithium iron phosphate batteries are nothing new. We have been using them in large devices at work for 6+ years now and they have been around a lot longer than that. They are more safe than regular lithium batteries, and they have a better number of cycles for their life. But they are also heavy. Anyway, this is certainly more about their development of a self-heating version (combined with rapid cooling) to allow super-fast charging without damaging the battery.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • define "developing" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Goldsmith ( 561202 ) on Wednesday January 20, 2021 @12:52AM (#60966796)

    This looks like Penn State is doing some contract research for the Department of Energy and they wrote up a paper that is not quite a proof of concept. There are many steps between this and "developing" in the context of an actual battery used in a car.

    (Yes, I know this is the normal way things go, I'm a scientist. This habit we have in science of saying "look, I did the first step, the rest are easy and cheap!" is really annoying.)

    • This habit we have in science of saying "look, I did the first step, the rest are easy and cheap!" is really annoying.)

      I blame all those college textbooks where the first step or two of a proof is explained, but is then followed by the text "the rest is left as an exercise for the reader".

  • "Cheap, efficient rechargeable batteries are here!" is the automotive equivalent of "This is the year of the Linux desktop!"
  • I own a Tesla Model 3 long range and do not have any issues whatsoever with range anxiety. Pre-COVID, we drove it on many long trips throughout Europe, 4'000 km (~2'500 miles) each time, Never had any issues to charge wherever we went. Charging along the way, 20-30 min max charging time, just enough to goto the toilet, grab a coffee and check internet. And for normal driving from home, never checking how much energy is left, plugging at home once a week. Range anxiety is not a problem anymore. Charging at h

    • Uum, I remember range anxiety with gasoline cars!
      You know, when the indicator was in the red...

      • yes, i remember putting only 5 dollars in, all the money i could spare, the needle was always on that first line LOL
    • I'm thinking there is a lot more commercial density in Europe than there is in Canada, for example. ie. more places to stop.
      • i was born in Canada agreed, difficult to find yourself in the middle of nowhere on mainland Europe in Canada, i would say, driving 1 or 2 hours north of any big cities and you are pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and range anxiety could be an issue. Unless you carry a jerry can full of 85 kWh of electricity.
        • Downmodded for facts. Gotta love it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          i was born in Canada agreed, difficult to find yourself in the middle of nowhere on mainland Europe in Canada, i would say, driving 1 or 2 hours north of any big cities and you are pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and range anxiety could be an issue. Unless you carry a jerry can full of 85 kWh of electricity.

          With normal EVs it's a problem, but Teslas do have a neat feature that there are adapters to use regular higher power plugs as well, so as long as you have electricity there's always a place to cha

    • As someone living in the Dakotas, I assure you, range anxiety still exists. There are stretches between my city and the city my cousins live in where my motorcycle, with a range of around 130 miles, is pretty much sniffing fumes before the next gas station. And that's for petrol, that's plentiful in this country. Charging stations are non-existent outside of homes and very, VERY few parking lots.

      While I'm aware that's an infrastructure issue, it's one that even gasoline hasn't completely tackled in this

  • A replacement battery!!

    Don't give me that "integral part of the chassis" crap, ya planned obsolence lock-in criminals. If you can completely redesign a chassis to put batteries in there, you can redesign it to put replaceable batteries in there.

    It also can guarantee a too old battery is phased out and you are guaranteed a large minimum range. Or just get a battery swapper at home. Charge one while driving the other, and having a third one ready.

    • I agree, swapping dead batteries with charged batteries seems like the most sensible option. As you pointed out the battery supply chain could be maintained more effectively as well; end of life batteries removed from the supply chain and recycled and defective batteries repaired. I remember seeing Tesla demonstrating this capability years ago (or am I wrong?). What happened to that concept?

  • Every time it heats up and cools down, it expands and contracts a bit, and the material gets weakened.
    I doubt they actually tested it for 2 million miles. Because it will look more crazed than a 100 year granny's paper-dry lips.

  • ...it's a revolutionary new battery technology that will finally be safe, cheap, and easy to charge quickly.

    This must be the what, tenth such story on Slashdot in the last 4-5 years?

    Yawn. Call me when it's both real-world proved and commercialized.

  • The authors wrote: "...thermally modulated LFP battery designed to operate at a working temperature around 60[deg]C [emphasis added]. They're scientists, after all...

  • IF it can be recharged in 10 min and IF it can travel 250 miles on a charge, that is "Nearly" as good as gasoline, I'd say it usually take about 3 min to refill my car but kids always want to go the bathroom etc so that is not unacceptable. It is specifically the restriction of not being able to drive and visit my family that has kept me out of the electric car market. Couple more questions?
    Will it come with a minivan and cost about the same?
    When do I expect to see it? ( I

  • 250 miles of range? Sounds great, but just a couple of questions about this:

    What is the energy density compared to what Tesla is using?
    What is the cost per KwH?
    How much does the car weigh that you claim will have this much range?
    How many charge/discharge cycles is it good for before capacity diminishes to 80% of original?
    etc.

  • Congratulations to Penn State's PR department.

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