Graphene battery or will become a new direction of development

We all know that electric vehicles are favored by consumers because of their cleanliness. However, the current battery power and endurance capacity are somewhat discouraging, but this headache may be resolved. According to media reports, Spain's Graphheno Company (a company that produces graphene on an industrial scale) collaborated with the University of Colvado in Spain to develop the first graphene polymer material battery, which has a storage capacity three times that of the best products on the market. The battery-powered electric vehicle can travel up to 1,000 kilometers while its charging time is less than 8 minutes. Graphenano plans to put this battery into production in 2015 and plans to test it with electric cars in two of the four largest German car companies, which now do not conveniently disclose the company name.

At present, Elon Musk, the star car of the electric car industry, and Tesla's chairman and product architect, boldly predicted in an interview with the British auto magazine AutoExpress that the future mileage of electric vehicles is expected to reach approximately 800. Kilometers. The launch of the combination of this graphene polymer battery and the automobile will probably lead the new cruising range of the electric vehicle industry.

Graphene is the thinnest and hardest material in the world. It was introduced in 2004. Its discoverer Professor Andre Geim of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2010.

This graphene polymer material battery has a long service life, which is four times that of a conventional hydrogenated battery and twice that of a lithium battery. And due to the characteristics of graphene, the weight of this battery is only half that of the conventional battery, making the car loaded with the battery lighter and further improving the vehicle's fuel efficiency.

Although this battery has various excellent properties, its cost is not high. Relevant person in charge of Graphenano said that the cost of this battery will be 77% lower than that of lithium battery and it is completely within the consumer's tolerance range.

In addition, graphene is expected to bring revolutionary advancements in areas such as automotive fuel cells.

Prof. Wu Heng'an of the University of Science and Technology of China, and Associate Research Fellow Wang Fengchao, together with Professor Andregem's team and researchers from the Nehemiah University of the Netherlands, discovered for the first time that transport of graphene materials such as graphene has been studied. Graphene can As a good "proton-conducting membrane," the world's leading academic journal "Nature" published this study online on November 26th.

A fuel cell is a power generation device that directly converts the chemical energy of a fuel into electrical energy. Compared with other batteries, it has the advantages of high energy conversion efficiency and no environmental pollution. "Proton-conducting membranes" are the core part of fuel cell technology. Fuel cells in automobiles use oxygen and hydrogen as fuels, converting the input chemical energy into electricity.

There are often fuel leaks on existing proton membranes, which reduces the effectiveness of the cell, but protons can easily "pass through" two-dimensional materials such as graphene, while other materials are difficult to cross, which can solve the problem of fuel infiltration and increase the The effectiveness of the battery.

According to studies, graphene thin films can be generally used to extract hydrogen in the atmosphere, suggesting that the material combined with fuel cells can more easily extract hydrogen from the air. Professor Karnik of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pointed out in his comments that this latest research confirms that it has theoretically met the US Department of Energy's 2020 Proton Exchange Membrane Transport Performance Target. This breakthrough research brings new discoveries for human cognitive graphene and other material properties, and is expected to bring revolutionary advancements to the fuel cell and hydrogen related technologies.