Fuelling a green dream
Hydro-québec zeroes in on a game-changing five-minute recharge for electric vehicles
VARENNES, QUE.— Engineers at Hydro-Québec’s research institute in this Montreal suburb say they can recharge a lithium-ion battery cell in just one minute.
That speed is the current state-of-the-art for solving one of the big problems with electric vehicles — how to cut the time it takes to re-juice a depleted battery.
The best fast-chargers now promise to do that job in about 30 minutes. With a 240-volt charger — the most common type — it’s hours.
But before you rush to your nearest EV showroom, you should know the breakthrough involves recharging just a single 18650 cell, the small, tube-shaped battery that’s used in many laptops and other electronic gadgets, and, in a pack of nearly 6,700, powers the Tesla Roadster electric sports car.
Still, it’s a major step in the slow-moving effort to produce batteries that can help make EVs appeal to the masses.
The goal, says Karim Zaghib, who heads the Hydro institute’s battery re- search team, is a five-minute charge for almost any battery pack; a rate that would get drivers back on the road in about the same time as filling a gas tank.
That level of performance is reasonably close, Zaghib says. He won’t provide details: The institute and its partner in this research, the U.S. Department of Energy, have applied for patents for the technology.
They’ll reveal nothing until that’s complete, likely by the end of the year.
Skeptics who argue it’s physically impossible to push enough electricity into a battery to achieve a fiveminute charge — several readers have sent me detailed calculations to “prove” that point — are just trying to pry a few secrets loose, Zaghib says with a laugh.
This development of super-fast charging is notable enough. What’s more remarkable is that it’s just part of the groundbreaking research being conducted at the institute — work that places provincially owned Hydro-Québec among the global leaders in developing battery technology for electric vehicles.
Around the world, many government and corporate labs are pushing to develop the next-generation battery — the one that would make its inventors rich by giving EVs the same performance, convenience and cost as internal combustion cars. “Breakthroughs” are routinely announced, although most come with the caution that sales to con- sumers are years away.
No other utility in North America is doing anything like the Quebec work — certainly not Ontario Power Generation, where, a spokesperson says, “research and development is no longer part of (its) core mandate.”
Hydro-Québec has been involved in battery research for more than three decades and got into lithiumion in 1995. It “wanted to accelerate the penetration of EVs and plug-ins as soon as possible,” Zaghib says. “We want to be recognized for helping to accelerate EVs.” The utility has electricity to spare — 98 per cent of it from massive hydroelectric generating stations — and would benefit from increased demand. Its current capacity could support 1 million EVs, or one-third of all cars on Quebec’s roads. Part of its pitch is based on the fact that, though dams on the province’s northern rivers have dramatically impacted the James Bay environment, waterpower is considered a pollution-free, renewable energy source. “We’re charging batteries with green electricity,” Zaghib says. “This is the main reason.” In addition, the institute expects its partners to create jobs in Quebec, making battery components based on the new technology. Much of that success is due to Zaghib, 48, an electrochemist who says he dreams about EV batteries, some nights awakened a new idea to improve them. His cumbersome job title — director of the energy storage and conversion department — belies the passion for his work that he displayed during a recent tour of the research centre, a half-hour drive northeast of downtown Montreal. During the two hours he could spare between meetings, we raced through research labs spread throughout three buildings, warmly greeting any of the 37 colleagues he encountered along the way and delivering thorough and enthusiastic explanations of the development and testing in each location. Trained in Grenoble, France, he has been doing battery research since 1986. Over the past quartercentury, he has published more than130 papers and 85 patents, and edited 11 books. He was developing new materials for lithium-ion batteries at the Osaka National Re- search Institute in Japan when, in 1995, Hydro-Québec came calling.
EV batteries are made up of cells, each containing two electrodes. One, the cathode (usually a metal compound), is positive. The other, the anode (usually graphite), is negative. Between them is a liquid called the electrolyte, as well as a separator (a bit of plastic material preventing electrodes from touching so they don’t short-circuit).
When a typical EV battery is fully charged, each anode is full of lithium ions. As the driver hits the accelerator, ions flow through the electrolyte to the cathode, creating an electric current. When most have made that journey, the battery must be recharged, which pulls the ions back to the anode, ready to move again when power is demanded.
The institute is also working on a silicon-based anode that would dramatically increase energy storage, and just beginning research into lithium air, the ultimate, but extremely difficult, technology that promises huge increases in range. Zaghib doesn’t mind being so busy.
“I love my job,” he says. “I’m not counting my hours.”