May 25th, 2020 by Steve Hanley
Investors have just pumped $27.5 million into Los Angeles-based Nanotech Energy. Why? Because the company claims its graphene based lithium batteries can charge 18 times faster than conventional lithium-ion batteries. One of the factors holding back the EV revolution is the perception that electric cars take forever to recharge. People refuse to buy them if they take longer to charge than it takes to fill a gas tank. Who cares about climate change? If it’s less convenient, people want nothing to do with it.
But if what Nanotech Energy says is true, it may soon be possible to recharge an EV in less time than it takes to fill up at the Gas N Go. That could really light a fire under the switch to electric transportation, which would be a very good thing indeed.
Image credit: Nanotech Energy
CleanTechnica readers are a suspicious lot. We have seen hundreds of announcements about revolutionary battery breakthroughs, but so far, the vast majority of them have been vaporware. (Tesla’s Battery Day, now scheduled for late June, may be an exception to the rule.) The company’s website is alarmingly short on details, graphs, charts, or other verification of such astonishing claims. In fact, the only thing that seems to suggest the company and its technology deserve more than a cursory glance is this statement from Dr. Andreas Hintennach, global head of battery research for Daimler AG.
“Three years ago, we challenged Nanotech Energy to provide us with the safest non-flammable battery chemistry, Nanotech Energy exceeded our challenge. Usually you sacrifice performance once you develop extremely safe chemistry. Now, for the first time, we have access to extremely safe chemistry that provides high performance and we are very pleased.”
Well, if Daimler is pleased, perhaps the company deserves a closer look.
What Is Graphene?
Nanotech Energy says graphene is the world’s first 2-dimensional material. It is 1 million times thinner than a human hair, 200 times stronger and 6 times lighter than steel, and able to stretch 20% of its length. It is highly conductive and carries electrons at the rate of 1 million meters per second. The company says on its website, “Thanks to its outstanding surface area and high electronic conductivity, Nanotech Energy used graphene to improve the electrochemical properties of the lithium ion battery anode and cathode simultaneously. This has enabled a new generation of lithium ion batteries, we call graphene super battery (Gen I), with outstanding power density, energy density and cycling life.”
But wait, there’s more! Not content with its first generation battery, the company has gone back into the lab to create a second generation…
Go to the news source: Nanotech Energy Claims Its Graphene Lithium Battery Will Charge 18 Times Faster …
