You’ve likely heard of some common battery types, such as lithium ion, that are helping to power the future.
However, there’s a new contender for most-promising battery solution – graphene.
Graphene batteries leverage their namesake material, which sees carbon atoms bind together in a honeycomb lattice pattern to form an extremely strong, yet thin sheet. Graphene has a long list of beneficial properties – it conducts electrical and thermal energy extremely well, is lightweight and flexible, and is chemically inert.
That, in combination with the fact that it’s sustainable, make batteries leveraging the material an attractive option. So attractive, in fact, that graphene startup Nanotech Energy closed a funding round earlier this year at $27.5 million.
So, what benefits might graphene batteries’ widespread use bring?
Graphene Improves a Battery’s Surface Area
Because the material is so flexible and features such a large surface area, its use in complementing and supporting li-ion batteries’ anodes and cathodes brings an improvement to the overall surface area of the battery.
This improvement, which is possible because graphene can be coated on essentially any substrate, leads to better power and energy density, among other benefits.
Graphene Boosts Conductivity without Elevated Temperatures
Again, the beneficial property of graphene leads to the battery, itself exhibiting that property.
Since graphene is such an excellent conductor (without requiring the larger amounts of carbon traditional solutions do or increasing the temperature of the material when conducting energy), it leads to more optimized energy transfer and performance.
Graphene Brings Longer-Lasting, Faster-Charging Batteries
Finally, introducing graphene allows batteries to last for more charge cycles and to charge more quickly, leading to efficient, long-lasting batteries that could open up new possibilities in the world of technological innovation.
Picture electric vehicles that could charge quickly and drive longer, a common goal of the EV industry – graphene could help make that vision a reality.
Learn More Today
Arbin Instruments is committed to supporting the battery industry and the solutions that are powering our world, and this role will be even more critical as cutting-edge solutions like graphene become more commercially available.
To learn more about Arbin’s role in high-precision battery testing and more, contact us today.
