It took all night —the experts were visibly tired, but the test results brought excitement to everyone.
The special structure of the ball-shaped Silicon Carbide (SiC) crystal, when used as the negative electrode material for a lithium battery, displayed excellent electron conductivity. Crucially, its high lithium storage capacity was ten times that of the common graphite negative electrode material.
Professor Zhou and his assistant personally produced a lithium battery using this material, which they called 'Long-Crystalline'. After charge-discharge testing, the battery showed an energy density of 2000Wh/Kg. This is ten times, or even more, than the energy density of a standard ternary lithium battery of the same volume.
Currently available ternary lithium batteries, used in new energy vehicles, have a maximum energy density of 206Wh/Kg , with most new car batteries ranging from 150 to 200Wh/Kg. Therefore, the Long-Crystalline negative electrode material offers ten times the energy density of the most common lithium batteries.
The emergence of this material signifies a massive breakthrough in lithium battery technology.
Professor Zhou, though initially excited, quickly calmed down. Due to the strict precautions required for research, he and Assistant Professor Zhou along with the rest of the team, produced more Long-Crystalline batteries using the remaining material and began performance testing.
The testing took another full day, but the results truly made the team ecstatic.
The Long-Crystalline battery exhibited a stable and efficient charging and discharging process , with low heat, high security, and high energy reserves. It also demonstrated excellent high-temperature and low-temperature characteristics. Even under extreme conditions, from minus 50 to 80 degrees Celsius, it maintained a stable discharge state , far surpassing the performance and safety of ordinary lithium batteries.
The Long-Crystalline battery was unquestionably the best modern lithium battery.
Holding the thick detection report, Professor Zhou let out a long sigh, a smile spreading across his face. "This is great," he said. "This Long-Crystalline material is truly an excellent battery anode material. Let's sign it and submit the report. I believe our world's battery industry is about to undergo a great change!"
"Haha, yes, the Long-Crystalline battery will impact the global lithium battery industry," Professor Zhao laughed, signing his name on the report. "The most pleasing thing is that we're the ones launching this impact!"
Several other professors also excitedly signed.
The Council's Directive
Soon, this confidential report was submitted to the Supreme Council. The senior leaders, upon seeing the excellent performance report on the 'Long-Crystalline Cells,' also shared in the delight.
Under the directive to vigorously develop Long-Crystalline Cells and reform the lithium battery industry, the underground base in Starfire City was put under the full responsibility of the "Otherworld Plan Consultants" for this matter.
The news quickly spread throughout the underground base.
"Wow, that's amazing! Does this mean our future mobile phone batteries will last long enough?" someone asked.
"If a phone battery can be ten times better than it is now, that's 40,000mA! It could potentially last a week without needing a charge,".
Zhou smiled. "It's not just phones! If computers, tablets, and all electronic equipment start using Long-Crystalline batteries, it would truly cure everyone's low-power anxiety!"
"Oh, I should have waited before buying this new electric car!" Sister Zhang sighed, looking remorseful. "If I'd waited until the Long-Crystalline battery was adopted for new energy vehicles and came to market, the range would be far better than my car's 400 km. I shouldn't have been so quick!"
Marcus, the Team Leader, looked at the sighing Sister Zhang and offered a wry smile. "Don't regret it. When the Long-Crystalline battery hits the market, you can just replace the battery in your current car with the new one, right?"
"It definitely won't be cheap to replace the battery!" Sister Zhang retorted eloquently. "With that kind of money, wouldn't it be better to just buy a new energy vehicle that comes with the Long-Crystalline battery directly?"
Hearing this, Marcus and Jiang Xuan exchanged another wry smile. It's often impossible to reason with a woman who has already made up her mind.
The Preparation Challenge
Back in the base laboratory, as research on the special spherical SiC Long-Crystalline material deepened, Professor Zhou's team found a way to prepare the material without relying solely on the Otherworld.
However, the preparation conditions for the Long-Crystalline material were extremely harsh, making the cost very high. Essentially, the cost for a single gram of Long-Crystalline material reached tens of thousands of yuan, making it even more expensive than single-layer, high-purity graphene. The prohibitive cost made mass-production of the Long-Crystalline material impossible.
Fortunately, they had access to the Long-Crystalline material ores in the entire world of Ice and Fire. If the reserves of this ore were high enough, they would be able to develop Long-Crystalline batteries on a large scale.
Experimental research indicated that when the negative electrode material was made completely of Long-Crystalline, the electric capacity of the same volume lithium battery was more than ten times that of an ordinary ternary lithium battery. When the Long-Crystalline content of the negative electrode material was reduced, the battery capacity also decreased. This realization was very beneficial for controlling the development of the Long-Crystalline battery.
The Long-Crystalline battery that had ten times the negative electrode capacity (by using a full Long-Crystalline negative electrode) could be reserved for aerospace, warships, submarines, and weapons.
Meanwhile, Long-Crystalline batteries with reduced amounts of the material, achieving two to ten times the capacity, could be used across various civilian industries. The most popular applications would be in mobile phone batteries, new energy vehicle power batteries, computers, and various household appliances. Given the advantages of excellent safety, stability, high electric capacity, and fast charging speed, it was entirely conceivable that the promotion of the Long-Crystalline battery would bring about vast global changes.
At that point, the world's oil giants would likely go completely insane.
Any new energy electric vehicle, after using Long-Crystalline batteries, could achieve a driving range of 2,000 kilometers and take only one hour to fully charge. Such a monumental advantage would completely eliminate all fuel-based vehicles. The automotive industry was poised for dramatic changes.
A Global Patent
The team considered that once the Long-Crystalline battery was launched, the material itself could not be kept a secret forever. Given that the preparation of Long-Crystalline material was difficult and costly, they weren't afraid of it being leaked.
Instead of being overly secretive, only for the material to eventually be cracked by reverse-engineering samples from the launched battery, it was better to directly publish a paper and make the discovery public. This way, they could at least claim the honor of the discovery and show the world the great contribution that the nation had brought to the progress of the battery industry.
Since the high command agreed to publish the paper and apply for patents, the Chinese Academy of Sciences immediately established a new Long-Crystalline Material Team. Under the team's name, they published a paper detailing the discovery and performance research of "Special Spherical SiC Materials," and applied for global patents.
The paper was sent to the journal Nature. Because of the collective recommendation of the leaders of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the editors of Nature worked overtime to verify the methodology and the paper's correctness.
"Hurry up, Harry! Take down the last paper on condensed matter physics that we confirmed—this one is much more worthy of being published on the cover of the journal!"
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