دانشمندان فناوری زیستی برای چهار برابر کردن عمر باتری هواپیماهای الکتریکی کشف کردند

Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Michigan turned to modern biology laboratories to seek methods to improve battery performance in electric aircraft. Technology helping us better understand our cells could also unlock a future of emission-free air travel.

The types of batteries we have developed thus far have made electrification of road-based transport relatively easy. These batteries can deliver sustained energy for prolonged periods, helping cars and trucks move over increased distances.

Flying, though, presents a different type of challenge. An aircraft requires intense power during takeoff and landing while demanding sustained power for the duration of the flight. For air travel to attain sustainability through the use of battery technology, a battery needs to perform this dual role.

According to Youngmin Ko, a postdoctoral researcher at Berkeley Lab, conventional batteries are not designed to fulfill this dual role. This is partly due to our lack of understanding of how complex reactions work at the anode, cathode, and between the electrolyte.

How can omics help?

Biologists have been trying to understand the role of cell components and their complex interactions for centuries. Researchers have taken a broader approach in the past few decades and studied them along with other components instead of working in isolation.

In biology, this is referred to as omics—the sum of the constituents of the cell—and has helped researchers better understand the roles of the genome ( genomics ), proteins (proteomics), and metabolites (metabolomics).

Researchers at Berkeley and the University of Michigan also used this approach to understand the reactions between the multiple components of the electric battery.

They focused their attention on lithium-ion batteries, which are extensively used in the market today but have yet to be able to address long-haul transportation demands.

Improvements in battery

Using the omics approach, the researchers determined that the inability of lithium batteries to provide high power for sustained periods was not a problem of the anode, as believed. Instead, it was the cathode that was the root cause.

The researchers found that when certain salts were mixed in the electrolyte, they formed a protective coating around the cathode, making it resistant to corrosion and improving its performance.

“We found that mixing salts in the electrolyte could suppress the reactivity of typically reactive species, which formed a stabilizing, corrosion-resistant coating,” added Ko in a press release.

For this project, the researchers partnered with the industry. They used their new knowledge to design a new battery for electric aircraft. The team found their new battery design was four times better than conventional batteries in terms of how many cycles it could maintain the power-to-energy ratio needed for flight.

The team is now working to build a battery capacity of 100 kWh to carry out a test flight of an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft as early as 2025.

“Heavy transport sectors, including aviation, have been underexplored in electrification,” said Brett Helms, a staff scientist at the Berkeley Lab. “Our work redefines what’s possible, pushing the boundaries of battery technology to enable deeper decarbonization.”

The researchers will also continue to use the omics approach to explore interactions of other battery components and improve battery performance in the future.

The research findings were published in the journal Joule .