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* Posts by Andrew J Sutter

2 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Mar 2009

Superfast-charging batteries? Whoa there, MIT

Andrew J Sutter

re Jerry 02:34

Jerry, I've read the Nature paper and you're right that the scientists don't claim fast charging. And I don't thnk anyone is accusing them of fraud. The accusation is *hype* -- and here the scientists are guilty. As mentioned in my 01:46 post, they not only mention charging in the title of the article, they include a paragraph about fast charging in their paper (including a mention of how it would "induce lifestyle changes"), despite the absence of any relevant data.

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Andrew J Sutter

Nature article DOES talk about charging -- though no data

The Register says "In any case, Ceder and Kang - while apparently happy to speak to journalists of fast-charging, unless that was made up by the scribes - don't yet claim fast charging for their kit among their scientific peers." But the truth is more complicated than that.

The title of the paper is "Battery materials for fast CHARGING and discharging" (emphasis added). And despite not presenting any charging data, the authors state in the penultimate paragraph of the main text: "The ability to charge and discharge batteries in a matter of seconds rather than hours may make possible new technological applications and induce lifestyle changes. Such changes may first take place in the use of small devices, where the total amount of energy stored is small. Only 360Wis required to charge a 1Wh cell phone battery in 10 s (at a 360C charging rate). On the other hand, the rate at which very large batteries such as those planned for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles can be charged is likely to be limited by the available power...."

So the authors, not the "scribes", are generating the hype. So too Nature, which allowed this seemingly irrelevant text to stand.

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