A lithium carbon battery from Allotrope Energy can charge in 90 seconds and will be available in an electric scooter this year.Allotrope Energy in the UK says it has developed a lithium carbon battery for mopeds and scooters that can be recharged in as little as 90 seconds. The new battery is being supplied to manufacturers by Mahle Powertrain, a global Tier One supplier to the automotive and mobility market.
The fast charging capacity is a result of the lithium carbon battery’s high specific power, which can exceed 15 kilowatts per kilogram, according to Allotrope. 10 kW per kilogram is the norm for other lithium-ion battery chemistries.
Pete Wilson, Allotrope’s technical director, tells Canary Media the key to lithium carbon technology is the development of non-porous carbon which has traditionally been categorized as a capacitor material. He says that in 2014, a German automotive company came to the Allotrope team, which was then focused on capacitors, in search of a new battery technology.
“We realized that the battery they were asking for was not an ultracapacitor and it wasn’t a lithium ion battery, but some bizarre combination of both,” Wilson says. “When we did the basic mathematics on why this battery had not been commercialized, it became clear the reason is this problem with the carbon. We were a company that specialized in carbon. As a result, we put all the pieces together.” Several years back, Tesla invested in ultracapacitor technology when it purchased Maxwell.
Lithium Carbon Is Good For Some Applications But Not For Others
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Source: Clean Technica