Over the past decade, Engineers and industry leaders have worked hard to improve electric cars in terms of efficiency and sustainability. The industry has grown, however, a feasibility glitch that still affects the sales of these cars is the issue of recharging. New liquid batteries under development is helping to change this and give some practical solutions to battery recharging related issues. A team of chemists based at the University of Glasgow has developed a liquid flow battery that uses hydrogen gas and electric power storing nano-molecules. The new battery is named ‘hybrid-electric hydrogen’ flow.
The stored energy can be released in the liquid form, which provides necessary fuel as well. The goal is to create a setup in which charging can be completed at the same time required for refueling a petrol vehicle. Right now, the charging time ranges from 30 minutes to a few hours. The results were published in an article titled, “Highly reduced and protonated aqueous solutions of [P2W18O62]6- for on-demand hydrogen generation and energy storage.” Paper co-author and University of Glasgow Chemistry Chair Professor Leroy Cronin talked about the research and said, “For future renewables to be effective high capacity and flexible energy storage systems are needed to smooth out the peaks and troughs in supply. Our approach will provide a new route to do this electrochemically.”
Bloomberg European Equities Director, Tom Lavell, said that a partnership between Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes, and Ford was announced in summer 2017 to develop a robust fast-charging network throughout Europe. He said, “The partnership … aims to establish ‘thousands’ of stations along European highways by 2020, the automakers said … The rare broad-based cooperation shows the strains on carmakers as they invest billions of dollars to develop battery-powered vehicles to comply with tighter environmental regulations. Buyers have so far shown little interest in the models because of limited driving range, the time needed for recharging and the high price of vehicles.”
Electric car manufacturers have the task of educating the public about the benefits of using electric cars as well as engaging in an ambitious research and development effort. Such innovations are helping to provide a solution that doesn’t cost too much to the manufacturers as well.
