Electric cars could be charged in a matter of seconds using a revolutionary new battery system, it has been claimed.
A so-called ‘flow battery’ system, which has been developed by researchers at the University of Glasgow, uses nano-molecules to store either electric power or hydrogen gas, creating a flexible dual-output battery system.
According to a report published in the journal Nature Chemistry, when a concentrated liquid contains nano-molecules, the amount of energy it can store increases by almost ten times.
Professor Leroy Cronin, the University of Glasgow’s regius chair of chemistry, 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 and could even have application in electric cars where batteries can still take hours to recharge and have limited capacity.
“Moreover, the very high energy density of our material could increase the range of electric cars, and also increase the resilience of energy storage systems to keep the lights on at times of peak demand.”