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La batera que calienta bajo cero

Xiao-Guang Yang y Chao-Yang Wang

Las bateras de ion litio se utilizan como fuente de energa en telfonos mviles, cmaras,
ordenadores porttiles e incluso en vehculos elctricos, pero no funcionan bien a
temperaturas bajo cero. Este problema se suele mitigar incorporando aislantes y
calentadores externos, pero esto aade peso y volumen a la batera, un inconveniente en
aplicaciones como los drones y aviones no tripulados.
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Investigadores de la Universidad Estatal de Pensilvania (EE UU) han dado con otra
solucin, incorporando una lmina de nquel en la estructura de la batera de ion litio. Su
diseo permite desviar la corriente a travs de esta hoja cuando las temperaturas son bajo
cero, produciendo calor de forma rpida.

Sin embargo, una vez que este calentamiento eleva la temperatura interna del dispositivo
por encima de 0 C, se activa un interruptor y la batera recupera su operacin normal.

Los autores, que publican su estudio en la revista Nature, demuestran que la batera se
puede calentar de -30 a 0 C en apenas medio minuto, consumiendo solo el 5,5 % de su
capacidad. De esta forma puede aportar un flujo eficiente de energa en ambientes donde
las temperaturas son extremadamente fras, por lo que se podra aplicar en vehculos
elctricos que circulen en regiones fras, as como en las industrias robtica y aeroespacial.

Lithium-ion battery structure that self-

heats at low temperatures
Chao-Yang Wang, Guangsheng Zhang, Shanhai Ge, Terrence Xu, Yan Ji, Xiao-Guang Yang

& Yongjun Leng

Lithium-ion batteries suffer severe power loss at temperatures below zero degrees Celsius,
limiting their use in applications such as electric cars in cold climates and high-altitude
drones1, 2. The practical consequences of such power loss are the need for larger, more
expensive battery packs to perform engine cold cranking, slow charging in cold weather,
restricted regenerative braking, and reduction of vehicle cruise range by as much as 40 per
cent3.

Previous attempts to improve the low-temperature performance of lithium-ion batteries4

have focused on developing additives to improve the low-temperature behaviour of
electrolytes5, 6, and on externally heating and insulating the cells7, 8, 9.
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Here we report a lithium-ion battery structure, the all-climate battery cell, that heats itself
up from below zero degrees Celsius without requiring external heating devices or
electrolyte additives. The self-heating mechanism creates an electrochemical interface that
is favourable for high discharge/charge power.

We show that the internal warm-up of such a cell to zero degrees Celsius occurs within
20seconds at minus 20 degrees Celsius and within 30seconds at minus 30 degrees Celsius,
consuming only 3.8 per cent and 5.5 per cent of cell capacity, respectively.

The self-heated all-climate battery cell yields a discharge/regeneration power of

1,061/1,425 watts per kilogram at a 50 per cent state of charge and at minus 30 degrees
Celsius, delivering 6.412.3 times the power of state-of-the-art lithium-ion cells. We expect
the all-climate battery to enable engine stopstart technology capable of saving 510 per
cent of the fuel for 80 million new vehicles manufactured every year10. Given that only a
small fraction of the battery energy is used for self-heating, we envisage that the all-climate
battery cell may also prove useful for plug-in electric vehicles, robotics and space
exploration applications.
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