A Boost for Battery Life and Capacity

A new chemical trick for making nanostructured materials could help increase the range and reliability of electric cars and lead to better batteries that could help stabilize the power grid.

Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, WA, have developed the technique, which can turn a potential electrode material that cannot normally store electricity into one that stores more energy than similar battery materials already on the market.

In work published in the journal Nano Letters, the PNNL researchers show that paraffin wax and oleic acid encourages the growth of platelike nanostructures of lithium-manganese phosphate. These "nanoplates" are small and thin, allowing electrons and ions (atoms or molecules with a positive or negative charge) to move in and out of them easily. This turns the material--which ordinarily doesn't work as a battery material because of its very poor conductivity--into one that stores large amounts of electricity.

To read the full, original article click on this link: Technology Review: A Boost for Battery Life and Capacity

Author: Kevin Bullis