As the EV race continues, one name that is catching up rather fast now is Japanese auto manufacturers, Toyota. They have just announced a breakthrough of all breakthroughs in the world of batteries and has developed what it says is, “the world’s first method for observing the behavior of lithium ions in an electrolyte when battery charges and discharges.” The big boys at Toyota say that within two or three years, once the breakthrough is commercialized, we could be looking at an improved battery range of an EV by as much as 15%.
The discovery took three years to come to fruition finally and for the company to be able to observe their work using a giant synchrotron located northeast of Kobe, Japan. This particular synchrotron is one of the largest in the world with a ring a diameter 5,000 ft wide. It was developed as a joint effort between the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute and the RIKEN Institute. The synchrotron can be rented for $600 per hour if you intend to keep your research a secret or free if you’re happy to share and publish your research.
By getting the opportunity to study how the ions migrated from minus to plus, the researchers were able to see developing ion constipation during the charging and recharging phases. Toyota engineers are now looking to use this information and a new method of observing to develop more efficient batteries that hold a better charge and live a longer life.
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