Engineers at Penn State University has developed a New Self-heating Battery Technology that allows the battery cells to charge up to 80 per cent in just 10 minutes, without facing any of the current limitations of fast charging. Mainly, the drawbacks include battery capacity degradation due to the formation of lithium plating during fast charging and lowered lifespan due to the sustained heat levels.

The New Self-heating Battery Technology

The new battery technology enables the individual battery cells to be rapidly heated during charging by providing an external self-heating nickel foil, and then cooled during discharge. Heat obtained during charging time, helps to prevent lithium plating and with this rapid heating cycle which will last for 10 minutes, the ill effects have been minimized up to a greater extent.

The new technology keeps hold of its battery capacity during fast charging over 1,700 cycles. Whereas the current battery technology which showed degradation after 60 cycles during fast-charging. This technology also exhibited its ability to retain its charge capacity over 91 per cent through 2,500 charge cycles, which is roughly equal to 8 lakh km of driving distance.

Some of the challenges in bringing this self-heating battery technology to accomplishment could be in bringing the batteries up to temperature in varying environmental conditions. But the technology is in its early days yet.

However, the battery technology is able to absorb 400kW of energy, while most of the currently available fast chargers charge at between 40-50kW DC. Some new EVs like the Porsche Taycan can accept up to 270kW and new charging technology should see DC fast chargers provide up to 450kW of energy soon.