Is this the big battery breakthrough?

Is this the electric car breakthrough we have been waiting for?

A Japanese company has developed a new battery that charges 20 times faster than a lithium ion battery – currently the best production battery technology around – and with the same charge density as the best lithium ion units.

On top of that it doesn’t use any rare earth metals such as lithium, cobalt, or manganese – in fact it uses no metals at all, instead relying on carbon, one of the mainstays of the planet, as its base.

What’s more, the Japanese company, Power Japan Plus, is working on a way to make the battery materials from organic material, which will make it totally sustainable.

And, says the company, the whole process is cheaper, and the batteries don’t get hot like lithium ion batteries can – meaning electric cars won’t need costly cooling systems, and also making them much safer in operation. And the battery can take almost double the number of recharges as a lithium ion battery.

Put into terms we can all understand, it means a Nissan Leaf could be recharged in 12 minutes instead of the current four to five hours. At a recharging station, this means it would recharge faster than you could drink a cup of coffee or use a toilet!

And another simpler benefit – the price of electric cars would come down!

Called the Ryden dual carbon battery, it makes use of a completely unique chemistry, with both the anode and the cathode made of simple carbon.

The dual carbon design used in the battery, combined with an organic electrolyte, allows for a unique current flow within the battery. Positively charged lithium ions flow to the anode and the negatively charged anions flow to the cathode. This shortens the distance of current flow within the battery, allowing for the faster charge and discharge.

Power Japan Plus has filed one patent and is preparing to file three more on the dual carbon battery.

The batteries can fit into a standard 18650 cell (the one used in laptops and electric cars), requiring no significant change to existing manufacturing lines.

And it would be more powerful than other batteries, operating at over four volts.

The battery would also be highly sustainable, as it is fully recyclable. Power Japan is planning to produce the battery using an organic carbon complex, developed in-house from organic cotton, to obtain a greater control over the size of the carbon crystals in its electrodes.

Power Japan is planning to start production of 18650 dual carbon cells later this year for specialty applications such as medical devices and satellites, and plan to licence the technology to other companies for use in electric vehicles.

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