Battery recharge within minutes?

According to an article at VNUNet.com: "Traditional lithium batteries dispense power slowly, but also charge slowly because of perceived limitations in the lithium itself.

"However, the team at MIT found that the problem lies not in the lithium, but in the substrate around it, according to a paper (PDF) published in Nature.

"The team, led by Gerbrand Ceder, the Richard P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and Byoungwoo Kang, a graduate student in materials science and engineering, has created a battery that can be fully charged and discharged in under 20 seconds (low capacity battery, MiM)."

Green Car Congress quotes Simmons " (...) the rate at which very large batteries such as those planned for plug-in hybrid vehicles can be charged is likely to be limited by the available power: 180 kW is needed to charge a 15 kWh battery (a typical size estimated for a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) in 5 minutes."

Will this be the long-awaited breakthrough that could revolutionise electric transportation? Read more in the original articles.

Original articles

• VNUNet: Battery breakthrough could cut recharging to seconds

And for the the tech-savvy amongst you:

• Green Car Congress: MIT Researchers Develop Lithium Iron Phosphate Material with Charge/Discharge Rates Comparable to Supercapacitors