Titanium Dioxide Battery – A Revolution In Batteries?

Science
New battery can charge electric car in just 2 minutes

New titanium dioxide battery can charge electric car in just 2 minutes!

With today’s rush life, I wish I had more time to do things I like. That is however not possible, and day still has “only” 24 hours. For those, who own an electric car, time seems like something, that could use more. Charging electric car, can sometimes be really challenging. We are still talking about time. Do you know how long does it take to charge a completely drained battery in an electric car? For Chevy Volt, it is 4 hours with 240-volt socket and Nissan Leaf requires 8 hours. It it a bit long. What if I tell you now, that there is a battery, that could do it in just 2 minutes?

According to a news in Advanced Materials, scientific journal, Associate Professor Chen Xiaodong and his team  from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (NTU) has reinvented battery. The new battery can be recharged to 70 percent in just two minutes (to full extend somewhere around 5 minutes).  This allows electric cars to charge around 20 times faster than current technology. If that doesn’t sound cool enough, the battery also has a lifespan of up to 10.000 charging cycles, which is 20 times more than the current 500 cycles of todays batteries.

The entire process, seems like super easy thing. University team released into the press, how they did it. They replaced the usual graphite used in standard lithium-ion batteries with a gel made from titanium dioxide. Titanium dioxide is abundant, cheap and safe material found in soil. It is commonly used as a food additive or in sunscreen lotions to absorb harmful ultraviolet rays. The reason why this is so effective is, that they also found the way, how to turn titanium dioxide particles into nanotubes, which are 1.000 times thinner than a diameter of human hair. These nanotubes are why the batteries could be charged so fast, because they radically speed up chemical reactions inside.

Titanium Dioxide Battery

Titanium Dioxide Battery

“Electric cars will be able to increase their range dramatically, with just 5 minutes of charging, which is on a par with the time needed to pump petrol for current cars. Equally important, we can now drastically cut down the toxic waste generated by disposed batteries, since out batteries last 10 times longer, than the current generation of lithium-ion batteries”, said Prof Chen.

This titanium dioxide battery also has extended durability and lifespan of over 20 years, more than 10 times compared to existing lithium-ion batteries. It could save thousands of dollars on replacement costs. This is of course not only matter of electric cars. The lithium ion technology can be also applied to smaller batteries for electronics, you already have at home.

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Research team with their invention - Titanium dioxide battery

Research team with their invention – Titanium dioxide battery

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Michaela Miklusak

Michaela Miklusak is deputy editor of TechandFacts.com and big technology enthusiast. Michaela now lives in Singapore, where she studies System Engineering and Informatics. michaelam@techandfacts.com

1 Comment to Titanium Dioxide Battery – A Revolution In Batteries?

  1. By using a battery that can last 20 times longer than current technology, it will decrease the lifetime cost of the electric car, making them a more affordable and attractive option.

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