This year’s projects range from studying the implications of geographic and administrative boundaries on groundwater extraction in India, to identifying sources of methane in China, to examining natural structures with useful properties at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. The fund was established in 2014 by President Emerita Drew Faust to support and speed up Harvard’s transition from nonrenewable to sustainable sources. With support from the University and generosity from alumni and others, CCSF is able to fund projects that are paramount to solving global climate and health challenges.” Vice Provost for Research Richard McCullough, whose office administers the fund, said, “The variety of research in which our faculty and students engage - projects in government, engineering, chemistry, biology, landscape architecture, and more - reflects Harvard’s strong commitment to addressing the full scope of impacts from climate change. I look forward to seeing where their efforts lead us in the years ahead.” “The projects being funded this year draw on strengths from across the University and among a wide swath of researchers and scholars. “Pursuing a more sustainable future means advancing on several fronts to address the tremendous challenges posed by climate change,” Harvard President Larry Bacow said. As a result, nine research teams will share $1 million in the seventh round of the Climate Change Solutions Fund (CCSF) awards for proposals that create critical knowledge, propel novel ideas, and lead toward solutions that can be applied at Harvard and across the globe. But the chemistry and design of lithium-metal should allow the technology to go small sometime in the near future.Harvard faculty and students are training their interests and expertise on what is literally the world’s hottest hot-button issue: global warming. That won’t happen with the lithium-metal solid-state technology design which can be compared to a bacon-lettuce-and-tomato (BLT) sandwich as seen in the illustration above.Ĭan the battery be scaled down for use where lithium-ion is found today? Think cell phones and A, AA, AAA rechargeables? For the moment, the Harvard invention is at the EV battery-pack scale. That degradation you may have experienced when your smartphone starts to overheat. The secret to the design of the Harvard battery is an innovative multilayer self-healing assembly which deals with degradation common to lithium-ion battery technology. That too is an impressive performance improvement. And one other thing, this new battery fully recharges in between 10 and 20 minutes. So the performance demonstrated by this Harvard team’s lithium-metal battery at 631.1 Wh/kg and 10,000 discharge and recharge cycles is indeed impressive. Even so, current lithium-ion batteries come with 8-year warranties or 160,000 kilometres (100,000 miles) drive limits which probably means if you currently own an EV, at some point that warranty is going to come into play requiring a new battery pack. Lithium-ion battery packs on average can be discharged and recharged about 900 times before the upper capacity begins to degrade. Hydrogen fuel cells in comparison produce 530 Wh/kg. And the flexibility and versatility of our multilayer design makes it potentially compatible with mass production procedures in the battery industry.”Ĭurrent lithium-ion battery packs produce around 250 Wh/kg. In an interview by Anthony Cuthbertson of The Independent, Li is quoted stating, “This….design shows that lithium-metal solid-state batteries could be competitive with commercial lithium-ion batteries. It means EVs equipped with these batteries will easily match the durability of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles which on average is between 10 and 15 years. The 631.1-watt-hours per kilogram (Wh/kg) measure achieved by this battery, and its ability to retain 82% capacity after 10,000 discharge-recharge cycles leaves lithium-ion battery packs in the dust. A battery with greater density, lighter in weight, and more durable in terms of discharge-recharge cycles would be the breakthrough the planet needs to ween ourselves off the internal combustion engine and the greenhouse gas contributions this technology contributes to global warming. But the energy density and durability of the technology have led to range and ownership anxiety on the part of potential purchasers of EVs. Lithium-ion batteries today dominate the electric vehicle (EV) industry. Team lead, Associate Professor Xin Li described their effort as a search for the Holy Grail of batteries which Li believes has been found. In the journal Nature this month, a team at Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences published the results of their research into solid-state battery design.
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