How does it work

Professor Linden Archer’s team pointed out the promising properties of indium. It is a soft metal used mainly in the production of touch screens and solar panels.

Concerns about range present a greater barrier to transportation electrification than any other, including battery cost and capacity. We found a way to combat this with the help of newly designed electrodes. If you can charge the battery of an electric car in five minutes, why do you need such a large battery for 500 kilometers? You can take less, then the prices of the electric car will become more affordable,
says the archer.

The study showed that indium has two important properties for the anode: Extremely low energy barrier and moderate exchange current density. The combination of these qualities is of great importance for fast charging and long-term energy storage.

“The most important innovation we discovered is a design principle that allows the metal ions around the anode of the battery to move freely, find the right configuration and only then undergo the charge accumulation reaction. The end result is that with each charging cycle the electrode remains in a stable morphological state. Thousands of cycles into our fast-charging batteries “That’s what gives it the ability to recharge and discharge throughout time.”– added the engineer.

That’s the only bad thing about technology indium has quite a lot of weight. Even if it doesn’t play a big role for cars, it can be a critical problem for the small devices we carry with us.

Now the team needs to scale its technology and bring it to market. It is worth noting that in recent years we have witnessed a number of unsuccessful developments that also promise us fast charging, but so far these remain only on paper and in the scientific studies of scientists.

If this development is caught and spread, it will literally change the rules of the game. Combined with wireless inductive charging on the go, this will reduce the size and cost of electric car batteries and make electric vehicles a more attractive option for drivers.