Graphene for Automotive - Page 24

The Spanish car company Spania GTA announced the unveiling of its 925 hp model's latest evolution - a super-sportscar with a chassis and bodywork that have been created using graphene with carbon fibre, titanium and Kevlar. The car will be presented in the 85th Geneva International Motor Show from 5th to 15th of March under the name GTA Spano.

The car was enabled by a collaboration between Spania GTA and the Spanish Graphenano. The GTA Spano will be the first car in the world to incorporate this technology into several of its components. The car will be of a limited production line with only 99 cars planned for release. 

According to a report from a Chinese website, The Spanish Graphenano, along with the University of Cordoba and Grabat Energy, developed a polymeric graphene battery, especially suited for electric cars, that will be cheaper and lighter than conventional batteries and will run 1000km on a 10 minute charge. Graphenano claims that this revolutionary battery will be put into production in 2015.

Polymeric batteries can have a longer lifetime compared to conventional hybrid ones (up to four times!) and due to graphene's light weight, the battery itself will be light enough to improve the electric car's fuel efficiency.

Researchers from Rice University and Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have developed a lightweight supercapacitor that can be combined with regular batteries to boost the power of an electric car.

This supercapacitor is made of graphene films as the electrodes and carbon nanotube films as current collectors, resulting in a device that demonstrates energy densities of 8-14 watt-hours per kilogram, and power densities of 250-450 kilowatts per kilogram. 

Tesla's current Model S car has batteries with a capacitance of 85 kWh, which enables the car to drive up to 480 km between charges. The company's CEO, Elon Mask, recently said that the company is developing "new battery technology" that will almost double the capacity - and will allow the cars to drive up to 800 km between charges.

Today, China News Network posts an article saying that Tesla's new battery technology is based on graphene. This makes sense as graphene-based battery electrodes can dramatically increase battery charge time and capacity. There are many companies developing this technology and it's likely that Tesla is collaborating with one (or more of these companies).

Perpetuus Carbon Group and OXIS Energy agreed to co-develop graphene-based electrodes for lithium-sulphur (Li-S) batteries.

OXIS is already developing Li-S batteries, and the collaboration with Perpetuus will enable them to develop even higher performing devices. Perpetuus says that those next-gen graphene-enabled batteries will offer an energy density in the order of 400 watt-hours per Kg - significantly higher than current Li-Ion batteries. This may enable electric cars to drive up to 800 kilometers on a single battery charge.

Researchers from Korea's KAIST institute developed a lithium-air rechargeable battery using a nano fiber graphene composite catalyst. This battery has five times greater storage compared to current lithium-ion batteries, and is the highest performing lithium-air battery ever developed. Such batteries may enable electric vehicle to travel almost a 1,000 kilometers on a single charge.

Lithium-Air battery uses lithium on the cathode and oxygen on the anode. Such batteries has been researched for a long time as they are cheap to make and are lighter than lithium-ion batteries. But they are difficult to commercialize because they suffer from short lifespan (because of high resistance during the charge-discharge process). This new battery has a new catalyst made by mixing cobalt oxide nano fiber and graphene. This not just increased the storage, but also resulted in good lifespan - over 80 recharge cycles with capacity greater than 100mAh/g.

Researchers from Rice University have used graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) to enhance a polymer material (thermoplastic polyurethane, or TPU) and make it more impermeable to pressurized gas. This could lead to much lighter gas tanks used in automobiles, soda bottles and even beer.

The researchers say that by adding the GNRs to the TPU, it made it a thousand times harder for gas molecules to escape through the material - even though the GNRs amount to 0.5% of the composite's weight. The GNRs were evenly dispersed through the material and were simply blocking the path for the gas molecules (graphene is totally impermeable, even for helium atoms).

Researchers from Stanford developed a new cathode material for rechargeable lithium-sulfur batteries - by wrapping sulfur particles in graphene sheets. This new cathode enables batteries with a significantly higher energy density than is currently possible. Such batteries can be used to power electric cars.

Current electric-car batteries 'weak spot' is the cathode materials that have low capacity (about 150 mAh/g for layer oxides and 170 mAh/g for LiFe-PO4). A sulfur cathode has a theoretical specific capacity of 1672 mAh/g - but sulfur is a poor conductor, it expands during discharge, and the polysulfides dissolve in electrolyte. Using graphene to wrap the sulfur may overcome many of these issues.