- The Chalmers University of Technology, in Sweden, has been exploring how batteries could also play a structural role in electric devices to save weight, with some of its researchers having explored the area for over a decade.
- The research group has now achieved what it calls a ‘world-leading’ advance in massless energy storage, allowing the structure of any electrical device, from an electric car to a laptop, to double up as the energy source itself.
- It has now produced a sample battery made of carbon fibre composite, with the same structural rigidity as aluminium and a high enough energy capacity to possibly have commercial viability in the longer term.
Structural EV batteries could drastically reduce vehicle weight
Many EV batteries already partly contribute to the structural rigidity of the car itself, but implementing this research from Chalmers University would see the entire structure of the car become the battery itself, with the carbon fibre structure storing the energy needed to power the vehicle. The university made a similar concept a number of years back, but with significantly less structural strength – with the new one addressing this, being almost three times stiffer – with a gigapascal rating of 70, compared to its predecessor’s 25. Achieving this extra strength will be particularly important if it is to be adopted in the future automotive sector, what with crash safety requirements. The potential reduced weight of an EV with this solution could increase the average electric car’s range by up to 70%.
The research is still in very early stages, so don’t expect seeing a mass-produced EV with a massless battery anytime soon, with the researchers also noting that the challenge it was working on now, is how to successfully draw a higher level of power from the battery concept. If the tech is found to be a success, we’d expect to see it as a proof of concept in smaller electrical products first, such as laptops or phones. Even solid-state batteries for EVs, which have already been successfully proven, are still a number of years away from mass production. However, Professor Leif Asp, one of the researchers at the university, did note that there had been a ‘great deal of interest’ in the research from both the automotive and aerospace sectors.
Professor Leif Asp, from the Chalmers University of Technology, commented on where the technology could first find its place:
“One can imagine that credit card-thin mobile phones or laptops that weigh half as much as today, are the closest in time. It could also be that components such as electronics in cars or planes are powered by structural batteries. It will require large investments to meet the transport industry’s challenging energy needs, but this is also where the technology could make the most difference.”
You can view the whole research paper, published by the university, here.
