BRISBANE, Australia – Engineers have discovered a way to more than double the lifespan of batteries used in smartphones and electric cars.
The battery breakthrough was successfully demonstrated by researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia, who increased the lifespan of a lithium-ion (li-ion) battery from several hundred charge/ discharge cycles, to more than 1,000.
“Our process will increase the lifespan of batteries in many things, from smartphones and laptops, to power tools and electric vehicles,” said Professor Lianzhou Wang from the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.
“This new approach features a minimal protective coating at a scalable process, paving the way for the deployment of these abundant high-voltage materials for next-generation high energy batteries.”
The method works by adding an atom-thin “epitaxial” layer of lab-grown crystals to the surface of the battery’s high-voltage cathode in order to significantly reduce the corrosion that takes place during charging cycles.
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