New nanostructure for batteries keeps going and going May 11, 2012 By Mike Ross For more than a decade, scientists have tried to improve lithium-based batteries by replacing the graphite in one terminal with silicon, which can store 10 times more charge. But after just a few charge/discharge cycles, the silicon structure would crack and crumble, rendering the battery useless. Now a team led by materials scientist Yi Cui of Stanford and SLAC has found a solution: a cleverly designed double-walled nanostructure that lasts more than 6,000 cycles, far more than needed by electric vehicles or mobile electronics. “This is a very exciting development toward our goal of creating smaller, lighter and longer-lasting batteries than are available today,” Cui said. The results were published March 25 in Nature Nanotechnology. http://phys.org/news...-batteries.html This is good news as electric cars will be able to last longer with a full charge.
