However, the huge shortcomings of lithium batteries in terms of safety, endurance, environmental pollution and charging speed have seriously restricted the development of major high-tech industries. Therefore, R&D departments of many enterprises have turned their attention to the more advanced "graphene battery" and believe that this new type of battery will completely replace lithium batteries that have been available for more than 26 years in the future.
What is a graphene battery?
Graphene is a hexagonal planar thin film with a honeycomb lattice composed of carbon atoms with sp2 hybrid orbitals, and it is only a two-dimensional material with the thickness of one carbon atom. Graphene is the thinnest but hardest nanomaterial in the world. It is almost completely transparent, only absorbs 2.3% of light, and it is also the material with the lowest resistivity in the world.
The so-called graphene battery is a new energy battery developed by using the characteristics of lithium ions shuttling between graphene surface and electrodes quickly and in large quantities. As a new nano-material with the thinnest, hardest and strongest electrical and thermal conductivity, the concept of graphene has attracted much attention since it came out in 2004.
Taking the field of power batteries as an example, graphene is a promising anode and cathode material for lithium ion batteries. At the same time, the weight of graphene polymer battery is only 50% of that of traditional battery, and the cost will be 77% lower than that of lithium battery. From the performance point of view, the graphene lithium battery can be charged for no more than 10 minutes at a time.
Graphene is called "magic material" because of its unique characteristics, and scientists even predict that it will "completely change 2 1 century".
The ideal is beautiful.
As we all know, lithium battery is still the most widely used battery material in the field of smart phones. Lithium batteries were first commercialized in 199 1, and later became the standard of electronic equipment. However, many people think that this technology has reached its limit and hope to find an alternative source, so graphene battery technology has entered people's sight.
The current news shows that Samsung's next-generation flagship model Galaxy S9 will use graphene batteries to replace the existing lithium batteries. The storage capacity of this battery is about 45% of that of the lithium battery with the same volume, but it can be fully charged within 12 minutes, and it can still maintain high stability in the environment as high as 60 degrees Celsius. This makes this material battery very suitable not only for smart phones, but also for electric vehicles.
It is reported that Samsung Research Institute has found a way to combine graphene and silicon dioxide on a large scale. The fused material is called "graphene ball", and its structure is similar to popcorn. The researchers pointed out that this technology not only improves the stability of the battery, but also improves the conductivity, "greatly improving the recyclability and fast charging ability of the cathode". More importantly, their energy density is close to 800Wh/L, which is similar to the lithium-ion battery used by Tesla.
According to outside analysis, if Samsung is the first manufacturer in the world to successfully put graphene batteries into mass production equipment, this Korean company will become the exclusive supplier or patent holder of graphene materials for a long time, which will also help the company's revenue and global status.
At the same time, the concept of "graphene battery" has been repeatedly mentioned in the field of new energy vehicles, which seems to have become a breakthrough in the current battery technology of electric vehicles. Graphene technology battery is called "milestone black technology", which claims to extend the cruising range and battery life of electric vehicles and shorten the charging time.
Perhaps the most representative is the Fiske EMotion electric car developed by Henry Fisco, the founder of Fisco. Fiske EMotion will use a new graphene battery material, which can travel 208 kilometers in nine minutes, with a maximum cruising range of 644 kilometers and a top speed of 259 kilometers per hour. The car is expected to be sold in the UK in 2020.
In addition, domestic media reported that scientists from Zhejiang University recently developed a new type of aluminum-graphene battery using graphene film as cathode material. This battery has a long service life, can be fully charged in a very short time, and can work normally in the temperature range from -40℃ to 120℃.
Moreover, the aluminum-graphene battery developed this time has some unparalleled characteristics of other batteries at present. For example, when the temperature is as low as MINUS 40℃, the aluminum-graphene battery can still charge and discharge stably 1000 times; High temperature to 100℃, stable charge and discharge for 45,000 times, even if the battery cell meets an open flame, it will not catch fire and explode. This wide temperature range lays a foundation for the future use of aluminum ion batteries under extreme temperature conditions.
In addition, the battery has good flexibility, and its capacity can remain unchanged after 1000 bending, which shows its application potential in wearable flexible electronics devices.