Electric vehicle range anxiety? Researchers develop new battery that could be a cure – Paradise Post

By Ashley Miznazi, Miami Herald

They call it range anxiety, the fear that an electric vehicle could run out of juice, say somewhere south of Yeehaw Junction on the way to Disney World with three cranky kids aboard.

Such scenarios are one of the big hesitations for many people pondering the purchase of an EV.

Research going on at Florida International University could go a long way toward curing that concern. The work is focused on a new type of battery, made of lithium-sulfur, that could potentially triple an EV’s range and also be cheaper, lighter and better for the environment.

But lithium-sulfur batteries have long had fatal flaws: they don’t recharge well and lose their juice after a year or two of use. Now, Professor Bilal El-Zahab, who runs FIU’s state-of-the-art battery lab, and a team of researchers have developed a promising breakthrough in battery composition detailed in a recent science journal paper.

“We’ve been working on this solution for at least ten years,” El-Zahab said “This battery will definitely last for more time than a typical battery.”

While still likely years from commercial development, he estimated that FIU’s change in battery chemistry could take an EV range from 300 miles to about 1000. That would certainly all but eliminate range anxiety on long trips and potentially transform the multibillion-dollar EV battery industry. For many everyday commuters, for instance, such improved performance could be the difference in charging every other week or every several weeks, instead of weekly, El-Zahab said.

Without trying to explain the complicated chemistry that makes batteries work, FIU’s team found that adding a metal catalyst, platinum, made lithium-sulfur last for more charging cycles. El-Zahab said to think about power flowing through battery pathways like a five-lane highway that suddenly slows to one open lane.

“So likelihood of accidents, likelihoods of losses, likelihood of anything wrong to happen, increases,” he said. “So what does platinum do? It acts like a traffic officer. It just goes in and guides people where to go and helps open up more lanes,” El-Zahab said.

The work was conducted in FIU’s battery lab — filled with flashing chargers, humming fans, pumps cycling the air, temperature controllers and other gear — has everything needed to make batteries from scratch. The researchers use large, black neoprene gloves that look something out of a sci-fi movie to work in oxygen and humidity-free chambers to assemble the batteries. They start by making a small battery, about the size of an AirTag, and scale their experimental versions from there.

Weighs and costs less

Since the early 90’s the battery of choice to power everything from our phones to satellites to EVs has been lithium-ion. But lithium-ion, El-Zahab said, is at “theoretical capacity” which means they can only produce so much energy — at least not without substantially raising the price.

El-Zahab says there are numerous other advantages to lithium-sulfur.

Today, EV cars are expected to run at least 200,000 miles and a typical EV vehicle might need a replacement battery to make it to the cars grave. The lithium-sulfur battery would eliminate the need for a replacement battery, which creates less waste in the environment. While gas cars batteries are typically recycled, the massive packs EVs use need special dismantling and could explode if done wrong. That doesn’t necessary mean they’ll end up at the landfill, but many sit in storage awaiting a recycling date.

Lithium-sulfur also offers another option — a much smaller battery which would enhance the safety of the car and cost, El-Zahab said. The sulfur batteries in the FIU battery lab can be made two to three times lighter than the ion batteries, he said.