{"id":9029,"date":"2014-06-20T18:55:16","date_gmt":"2014-06-21T01:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/?p=9029"},"modified":"2014-06-20T18:55:16","modified_gmt":"2014-06-21T01:55:16","slug":"decorated-anodes-make-light-work-fast-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/decorated-anodes-make-light-work-fast-charge\/","title":{"rendered":"Decorated Anodes Make Light Work of a Fast Charge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most stories featuring this scientific couple\u2019s (and a few associates\u2019) work focused on the 10-minute charging time for their portable electronics batteries.\u00a0 More interesting to those who look forward to applying this technology in electric vehicles, the three-dimensional, silicon-decorated, cone-shaped carbon-nanotube cluster architecture for lithium ion battery anodes enables a \u201c63 percent increase of total cell capacity and a battery that is 40 percent lighter and smaller.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThan what?\u201d your editor\u2019s high school math teacher would have insisted.\u00a0 The decorated item would be 63 percent better at holding a charge and 40 percent lighter and smaller than a similar cell with a graphite anode common to many lithium-ion batteries.\u00a0 Even though the researchers concentrated on the anode and seemed not to take a more holistic approach to battery design, the overall results seem promising.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Ozkans in their UC Riverside laboratory<\/p><\/div>\n

Husband and wife team Cengiz S. Ozkan<\/a>, a mechanical engineering professor at UC Riverside\u2019s Bourns College of Engineering<\/a>; and\u00a0Mihrimah Ozkan<\/a>, an electrical engineering professor, worked with graduate and undergraduate students at the University\u00a0to develop a unique battery that can, in addition to storing more energy in a smaller package, be recharged in only 10 minutes, as opposed to hours.<\/p>\n

Their paper,\u00a0\u201cSilicon Decorated Cone Shaped Carbon Nanotube Clusters for Lithium Ion Battery Anode<\/a>,\u201d was recently published in the journal SMALL<\/i>.\u00a0 They crafted their conical battery architecture by applying \u201cvapor deposition and inductively coupled plasma treatment,\u201d techniques which help the battery achieve \u201cultrafast rate[s] of charge and discharge,\u201d which for the anode alone can be \u201c16 times faster than conventionally used graphite based anodes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The research team claims high reversible capacity and excellent cycling stability for the resulting battery. The architecture demonstrates excellent electrochemical stability and reversibility even at high charge and discharge rates,<\/span><\/p>\n

Wei Wang<\/a>, lead author of the paper, attributes the battery\u2019s characteristics to two factors.\u00a0 \u201cOne, the seamless connection between graphene covered copper foil and carbon nanotubes enhances the active material-current collector contact integrity which facilitates charge and thermal transfer in the electrode system.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo, the cone-shaped architecture offers small interpenetrating channels for faster electrolyte access into the electrode which may enhance the rate performance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other co-authors are Isaac Ruiz, Kazi Ahmed, Hamed Bay, Aaron George, who are all graduate students, and Johnny Wang, an undergraduate student.<\/p>\n