Korean researchers develop faster-charging battery technology

Korean researchers develop faster-charging battery technology. October. 11, 2016 07:46. by 송경은 동아사이언스기자kyungeun@donga.com.

A team of local researchers in Korea has developed a next-generation battery whose charging speed is 100 times faster than that of lithium-ion batteries. The breakthrough is expected to advance the commercialization of electric vehicles. A group of researchers from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) led by Prof. Kang Jeong-gu developed a new hybrid battery whose charging speed has improved by a factor of a hundred by using the same substance for both positive and negative poles.

Boasting a great power capacity despite a compact size, lithium-ion batteries have been widely used for cell phones and laptops, but there was a limit to using them for electric vehicles as it takes a lot of time to recharge at high voltage. While a new-generation model called “Super Capacity” is being developed as an alternative for a high-speed recharging technology, it comes with the difficulty of miniaturization.

The new battery boasts power capacity that is more than 50 percent higher than a lithium-ion battery of the same size. “The meaning of this finding is that we’ve overcome the conundrum where increasing recharging speeds had an adverse effect on the density of electric power stored in a battery,” said Prof. Kang. “We are expecting that this will become a core technology of electric cars in the near future.”