Search

Structured battery could pave the way for lighter, energy-efficient cars

We are an online community created around a smart and easy to access information hub which is focused on providing proven global and local insights about sustainability

12 Sep, 2024

This post was originally published on Sustainability Matters

A newly developed structured battery could increase the driving range of an electric car by up to 70% on a single charge, halve the weight of a laptop and make a mobile phone as thin as a credit card.

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have made an advance in ‘massless energy storage’ with a device that functions as a battery as well as a load-bearing structure, reducing the weight and energy consumption significantly.

“We have succeeded in creating a battery made of carbon fibre composite that is as stiff as aluminium and energy-dense enough to be used commercially. Just like a human skeleton, the battery has several functions at the same time,” said Richa Chaudhary, Chalmers researcher and first author of a scientific article recently published in Advanced Materials.

Lower weight, reduced energy requirement

Research on structural batteries has been going on for many years at Chalmers, and in some stages also together with researchers at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. When Professor Leif Asp and colleagues published their first results in 2018 on how stiff, strong carbon fibres could store electrical energy chemically, the advance attracted significant attention.

Since then, the research group has further developed its concept to increase both stiffness and energy density. The previous milestone was reached in 2021 when the battery had an energy density of 24 watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg), which means roughly 20% capacity of a comparable lithium-ion battery, according to the researchers. Now it’s up to 30 Wh/kg. While this is still lower than today’s batteries, the conditions are quite different. When the battery is part of the construction and can also be made of a lightweight material, the overall weight of the vehicle is greatly reduced. Then, not nearly as much energy is required to run an electric car, for example.

“Investing in light and energy-efficient vehicles is a matter of course if we are to economise on energy and think about future generations. We have made calculations on electric cars that show that they could drive for up to 70% longer than today if they had competitive structural batteries,” said research leader Leif Asp, who is a professor at the Department of Industrial and Materials Science at Chalmers.

When it comes to vehicles, of course, there are high demands on the design to be sufficiently strong to meet safety requirements. There, the research team’s structural battery cell claims to have significantly increased its stiffness, or more specifically, the elastic modulus, which is measured in gigapascals (GPa), from 25 to 70. This means that the material can carry loads just as well as aluminium, but with a lower weight, according to the researchers.

Long road to commercialisation

From the start, the goal was to achieve a performance that makes it possible to commercialise the technology. In parallel with the fact that the research is now continuing, the link to the market has been strengthened — through the newly started Chalmers Venture company Sinonus AB, based in Borås, Sweden.

However, there is still a lot of engineering work to be done before the battery cells have taken the step from lab manufacturing on a small scale to being produced on a large scale for our technology gadgets or vehicles.

“One can imagine that credit card-thin mobile phones or laptops that weigh half as much as today, are the closest in time. It could also be that components such as electronics in cars or planes are powered by structural batteries. It will require large investments to meet the transport industry’s challenging energy needs, but this is also where the technology could make the most difference,” said Asp, who has noticed a great deal of interest from the automotive and aerospace industries.

The latest advances in this area have been published in the article ‘Unveiling the Multifunctional Carbon Fibre Structural Battery’ in Advanced Materials. The research has been funded by the Wallenberg Initiative Materials Science for Sustainability (WISE) programme.

Image credit: Chalmers University of Technology | Henrik Sandsjö

Pass over the stars to rate this post. Your opinion is always welcome.
[Total: 0 Average: 0]

You may also like…

In Vivid Reliquaries, Stan Squirewell Layers Anonymous Portraits and Patterned Textiles

In Vivid Reliquaries, Stan Squirewell Layers Anonymous Portraits and Patterned Textiles

Through intimate, mixed-media collages, Stan Squirewell excavates the stories of those who might otherwise be lost in anonymity.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article In Vivid Reliquaries, Stan Squirewell Layers Anonymous Portraits and Patterned Textiles appeared first on Colossal.

Land water loss causes sea level rise in 21st century

Land water loss causes sea level rise in 21st century

An international team of scientists, led jointly by The University of Melbourne and Seoul National University, has found global water storage on land has plummeted since the start of the 21st century, overtaking glacier melt as the leading cause of sea level rise and measurably shifting the Earth’s pole of rotation.

Published in Science, the research combined global soil moisture data estimated by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) Reanalysis v5 (ERA5), global mean sea level measurements and observations of Earth’s pole movement in order to estimate changes in terrestrial (land) water storage (TWS) from 1979 to 2016.

“The study raises critical questions about the main drivers of declining water storage on land and whether global lands will continue to become drier,” University of Melbourne author Professor Dongryeol Ryu said.

“Water constantly cycles between land and oceans, but the current rate of water loss from land is outpacing its replenishment. This is potentially irreversible because it’s unlikely this trend will reverse if global temperatures and evaporative demand continue to rise at their current rates. Without substantial changes in climate patterns, the imbalance in the water cycle is likely to persist, leading to a net loss of water from land to oceans over time.”

Between 2000 and 2002, soil moisture decreased by around 1614 gigatonnes (1 Gt equals 1 km3 of water) — nearly double Greenland’s ice loss of about 900 Gt in 2002–2006. From 2003 to 2016, soil moisture depletion continued, with an additional 1009 Gt lost.

Soil moisture had not recovered as of 2021, with little likelihood of recovery under present climate conditions. The authors say this decline is corroborated by independent observations of global mean sea level rise (~4.4 mm) and Earth’s polar shift (~45 cm in 2003–2012).

Water loss was most pronounced across East and Central Asia, Central Africa, and North and South America. In Australia, the growing depletion has impacted parts of Western Australia and south-eastern Australia, including western Victoria, although the Northern Territory and Queensland saw a small replenishment of soil moisture.

Image credit: iStock.com/ZU_09

0 Comments