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By kmcwalsh on October 3, 2011.
The following guest post was written by Wei-Qiang Han, a materials scientist working at Brookhaven Lab s Center for Functional Nanomaterials.
Wei-Qiang Han
With gasoline prices still hovering near $4 per gallon, scientists at Brookhaven Lab s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) are helping to develop electric vehicles capable of driving hundreds of miles on a single charge. A new compound of five tin atoms and one iron atom (FeSn
5) created at the CFN is another development along the road to higher capacity lithium-ion batteries for those vehicles of the future.
Compared to other types of rechargeable batteries, lithium-ion batteries weigh less, can store more electricity for longer periods of time, and can handle more cycles of use and recharging. They are used in some electric cars today, but are not yet powerful enough to compete with cars that can travel 300-400 miles on a single tank of gasoline.