Once-A-Week EV Charging Could Soon Become Possible

Apr, 2022 - By WMR

Researchers developed a new layer component that can make lithium-sulfur batteries for electric vehicles capable of requiring only once-a-week charge

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries provide a promising solution of significant energy storage with the storage that could one day make smartphones run for even five days. Moreover, researchers are making more advances to make this possible sooner. Now researchers at Monash University, Australia developed a new layer component that can takes one step closer to this vision of making lithium-sulfur batteries in electric vehicle capable enough to last for a week with one charge.

Sulfur is a cheap and abundant material that is easily available. However, batteries using sulfur faced stability issues arising from a chemical reaction that takes place when these batteries cycle. The lifespan of the device gets shorten when small particles known as polysulfides are formed during the operation causing complications for anode. Scientists developed solutions to this problem, such as Kevlar fibers that inhibit polysulfide particles’ movement and use of sulfur’s rare chemical phase for preventing their formation. Now the scientists at Monash developed a new version of this interlayer that features a unique surface chemistry and uniform network of pores that suppresses the movement of the polysulfides.

Moreover, this new layer affects transportation of lithium ions and promotes their movement in order to improve the device’s charge and discharge rates. As reported by the team of researchers, this new design offers significant protection of anode and excellent capacity retention as the team demonstrated performance of the new design in numerous cycles. Moreover, according to the scientists, such batteries would be capable of being required to charge only once a week and allow make batteries more sustainable than the current lithium-ion batteries, as these batteries use minerals that abundantly available.