Monday, November 16, 2009
MIT scientists chrged up
MIT (massachusetts Institute of technology)scientists have developed technology that might one ay allow people to actually charge their cellphones in 10 seconds or a drained plug-in car battery in a short time, basically reshaping the way such gadgets are integrated into our lives. The way the scientists began to do this is by tweaking a lithium-ion battery by creating access to the equivalent of on-ramps so that ions can easily enter an energy highway within the material. This advance enery allows thw batteries to charge in seconds and discharge about 100 times faster than current lithium-ion batteries according to Gerbrand Ceder, who is a material science professor at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology.
Ceder basically feels like if they made a cellphone battery that could charge in 30 seconds, that it would change peoples lifestyle. People might settle for a smaller battery, for example you can almost stand by and sip your coffee and it's done. Lithium-ion batteries store lots of energy, but charge and discharge relatively slowly, as positively charged ions slowly migrate across the battery material to create a current. To speed the ions along, he and graduate student Byoungwoo Kang developed a coating that gives the ions the ability to move quickly to entry points.
