Next-Gen "Massless" EV Batteries Could Weigh Nothing At All - R&D Insights Carbon Capturing Solutions

Join daily news updates from CleanTechnica on e mail. Or follow us on Google News!

The heavy weight of EV batteries is likely one of the elements that pull down driving vary, it doesn’t matter what different bells and whistles the R&D individuals provide you with. Scientists calculate that merely eradicating the battery would improve vary by 70%, aside from one tiny element, which is the absence of a battery. Or not, because the case could also be. The scientists behind that 70% estimate have been exhausting at work growing a massless EV battery, which means a battery that provides no further weight as a result of it pulls double obligation as a working a part of the car’s construction.

Massless EV Batteries Are Coming, Ultimately

The analysis group, based mostly at Chalmers College in Sweden, has been growing massless EV batteries since at the very least 2007. The important thing ingredient is carbon fiber, the identical light-weight however powerful versatile materials that goes into auto body parts.

Early efforts centered primarily on tweaking carbon fiber to behave like a battery. The concept of making use of the expertise to structural parts quickly adopted. As soon as carbon fiber is concerned as a conductor, the copper or aluminum present collectors in a typical EV battery can be eradicated, saving a big quantity of weight.

“By using the battery pack’s container and the battery cells themselves for rigidity, the overall weight of the vehicle can be reduced. Advantages include greater range per kWh of battery pack installed, better handling, and great potential for simplified vehicle assembly (which should reduce cost),” CleanTechnica’s Jennifer Sensiba famous again in 2021, when the Chalmers group reported a brand new milestone.

That’s not so simple as it appears. The researchers spent a number of elbow grease to attain a high-functioning mixture of each electrical and mechanical elements. The 2021 breakthrough got here from a collaboration of the KTH Royal Institute of Know-how, which produced a massless EV battery with 10 instances the multi-tasking efficiency of earlier iterations.

Massive Milestone For Massless EV Batteries

The Chalmers – KTH group reported an vitality density of 24 Wh/kg in 2021. If that appears fairly low, it’s. The group calculated that their new massless EV batteries had roughly 20% of the capacity of typical Li-ion EV batteries. Nonetheless, the outcomes have been promising sufficient to warrant a recent burst of analysis.

“But since the weight of the vehicles can be greatly reduced, less energy will be required to drive an electric car, for example, and lower energy density also results in increased safety,” the group defined.

“And with a stiffness of 25 GPa the structural battery can really compete with many other commonly used construction materials,” they added. GPa stands for gigapascal, an internationally acknowledged unit of measurement for the flexibility of a fabric to face up to compressive drive.

The achievement of 25 GPa for EV batteries represents a great begin in the direction of the purpose of 75 GPa described by undertaking chief Lief Asp of Chalmers College. At 75 GPa, massless EV batteries could be a lot lighter than aluminum however simply as powerful.

The first purpose of the Chalmers-KTH undertaking was to discover how completely different supplies interacted, which explains why they solely used carbon fiber for the anode (the damaging electrode). They deployed aluminum foil coated with a lithium-iron-phosphate formula for the cathode, and the separator consisted of a versatile fiberglass cloth embedded within the electrolyte.

Need extra particulars? Take a look at the article, “A Structural Battery and its Multifunctional Performance” within the journal Superior Power & Sustainability Analysis.

The All-Carbon Fiber Massless EV Battery

The researchers haven’t been letting any grass develop underneath their ft. Whilst they printed their 2021 outcomes, they have been already at work on a followup undertaking funded by the Swedish Nationwide Area Company.

“The aluminium foil will be replaced with carbon fibre as a load-bearing material in the positive electrode, providing both increased stiffness and energy density,” the group defined. “The fibreglass separator will be replaced with an ultra-thin variant, which will give a much greater effect – as well as faster charging cycles.”

The group additionally obtained funding from the Wallenberg Initiative Supplies Science for Sustainability. Their new examine is described within the journal Superior Supplies underneath the title“Unveiling the Multifunctional Carbon Fibre Structural Battery,” printed in September of 2024.

True to the duty, the researchers changed the aluminum foil within the cathode with carbon fiber, once more coated with the LFP system. “The carbon fibre used in the electrode material is multifunctional. In the anode it acts as a reinforcement, as well as an electrical collector and active material. In the cathode it acts as a reinforcement, current collector, and as a scaffolding for the lithium to build on,” the group explains.

The brand new battery achieved a stiffness of 70 GPa, bringing it as much as snuff by way of matching the efficiency of aluminum with a decrease weight.

The vitality density measured 30 Wh/kg, so the researchers nonetheless have an extended solution to go earlier than they match Li-ion batteries on vitality density. Nonetheless, Professor Asp makes a great case for commercial-ready massless EV batteries that commerce decrease vitality density for lighter weight.

“Investing in light and energy-efficient vehicles is a matter of course if we are to economise on energy and think about future generations,” Asp defined in a press assertion. “We have made calculations on electric cars that show that they could drive for up to 70 percent longer than today if they had competitive structural batteries.”

The place Are The Sustainable EV Batteries Of The Future?

The pursuit of massless EV batteries is only one factor in a broader, sustainability-oriented movement amongst leading automakers and different vitality storage stakeholders. Massless EV batteries are amongst a lot of new developments that deploy the LFP system to remove the provision chain complications posed by typical Li-ion batteries that depend on cobalt and manganese. The Chalmers group additionally used a semi-solid electrolyte as a substitute of the risky liquid electrolyte of typical Li-ion batteries (see more solid state background here).

There being no such factor as a free lunch, carbon fiber poses some sustainability problems with its personal. The fabric is vitality intensive to supply, and troublesome to recycle. Preserve a watch out for rising options, similar to a recyclable carbon fiber composite developed by the US Division of Power’s Nationwide Renewable Power Laboratory.

Observe me through LinkTreeor @tinamcasey on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

Picture: “Massless” EV batteries are designed to drag double obligation as structural parts that add no further weight to a car, increasing battery range by an estimated 70% (courtesy of Chalmers College).