One of the biggest problems hindering the spread of electric cars is battery charge time. While a gasoline car can refill its fuel tank and be off and driving in a matter of minutes, an electric car with depleted batteries must wait hours for a full charge. But in the future that could change radically. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has announced a battery-charging technology that could reduce the electric-car charge time from hours to just minutes. It has entered into a licensing agreement with Xerion Advanced Battery Corporation for the exclusive right to bring the university’s StructurePore battery-charging technology to the market.
The StructurePore technology was developed by Paul Braun, a professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois. He is also an officer and director of Xerion. Braun and his colleagues believe that the StructurePore technology has the potential to instantly charge cell phone batteries and rapidly charge laptops and electric cars, all within a matter of several minutes.
Xerion and the University believe that the patented StructurePore battery technology will enable the development of a rechargeable battery with significantly higher electrical capacity than that which is presently available with ultra-fast charge/ultra-fast discharge capabilities. Recent research and preliminary testing has suggested that the technology can function in both nickel-metal hydride and lithium-ion batteries. Braun and his Xerion colleagues believe that they may have found a way to greatly reduce the polarization effects of current batteries, thereby greatly increasing power and density. Xerion believes that the development of a new prototype battery will contain what it has labeled as “superhighway-like” avenues for electrons and ions to move at ultra-fast speeds while filling a charge and thus resulting in rapid battery-charging capability
