Tuesday, April 01, 2025

Charging electric vehicles 5x faster in subfreezing temps

A stabilizing coating on an electrode, combined with microscale channels, helps solve the trade-off between range and charging speed, even in cold temperatures

University of Michigan

Images

A modified manufacturing process for electric vehicle batteries, developed by University of Michigan engineers, could enable high ranges and fast charging in cold weather, solving problems that are turning potential EV buyers away.

"We envision this approach as something that EV battery manufacturers could adopt without major changes to existing factories," said Neil Dasgupta, U-M associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and engineering, and corresponding author of the study published in Joule.

"For the first time, we've shown a pathway to simultaneously achieve extreme fast charging at low temperatures, without sacrificing the energy density of the lithium-ion battery."

Lithium-ion EV batteries made this way can charge 500% faster at temperatures as low as 14 F (-10 C). The structure and coating demonstrated by the team prevented the formation of performance-hindering lithium plating on the battery's electrodes. As a result, batteries with these modifications keep 97% of their capacity even after being fast-charged 100 times at very cold temperatures.

Current EV batteries store and release power through the movement of lithium ions back and forth between electrodes via a liquid electrolyte. In cold temperatures, this movement of the ions slows, reducing both battery power as well as the charging rate.

To extend range, automakers have increased the thickness of the electrodes they use in battery cells. While that has allowed them to promise longer drives between charges, it makes some of the lithium hard to access, resulting in slower charging and less power for a given battery weight.

Previously, Dasgupta's team improved battery charging capability by creating pathways—roughly 40 microns in size—in the anode, the electrode that receives lithium ions during charging. Drilling through the graphite by blasting it with lasers enabled the lithium ions to find places to lodge faster, even deep within the electrode, ensuring more uniform charging.

This sped up room-temperature charging significantly, but cold charging was still inefficient. The team identified the problem: the chemical layer that forms on the surface of the electrode from reacting with the electrolyte. Dasgupta compares this behavior to butter: you can get a knife through it whether it's warm or cold, but it's a lot harder when it's cold. If you try to fast charge through that layer, lithium metal will build up on the anode like a traffic jam.

"That plating prevents the entire electrode from being charged, once again reducing the battery's energy capacity," Manoj Jangid, U-M senior research fellow in mechanical engineering, and co-author of the study.

The team needed to prevent that surface layer from forming. They did this by coating the battery with a glassy material made of lithium borate-carbonate, approximately 20 nanometers thick. The addition of this coating sped up cold charging significantly, and when combined with the channels, the team's test cells were 500% faster to charge in subfreezing temperatures.

"By the synergy between the 3-D architectures and artificial interface, this work can simultaneously address the trilemma of fast charging at low temperature for long-range driving," said Tae Cho, a recent Ph.D. graduate in mechanical engineering and first author of the study.

In the past two decades, EVs have become more commonplace on roadways as consumers look for better environmental options, but AAA survey results showed that the momentum is hard to maintain. From 2023 to 2024, the number of U.S. adults who would be "likely" or "very likely" to buy a new or used EV dropped from 23% to 18%.

And 63% said they would be "unlikely" or "very unlikely" to make an EV their next vehicle purchase. Part of the concerns are range drops over the winter, combined with slower charging, which was widely reported during the January 2024 cold snap.

"Charging an EV battery takes 30 to 40 minutes even for aggressive fast charging, and that time increases to over an hour in the winter. This is the pain point we want to address," Dasgupta said.

Follow-on work to develop factory-ready processes is funded by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation through the Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization (MTRAC) Advanced Transportation Innovation Hub.

The devices were built in the U-M Battery Lab and studied at the Michigan Center for Materials Characterization.

The team has applied for patent protection with the assistance of U-M Innovation Partnerships. Arbor Battery Innovations has licensed and is working to commercialize the channel technology. Dasgupta and the University of Michigan have a financial interest in Arbor Battery Innovations.

Study: Enabling 6C fast charging of Li-ion batteries at sub-zero temperature via interface engineering and 3D architectures (DOI: 10.1016/j.joule.2025.101881)

Journal

Joule

DOI

10.1016/j.joule.2025.101881

Global cost of 2025 tariff war could reach $1.4 trillion

A new report from Aston Business School evaluates the economic fallout of US tariffs across six potential future scenarios, from unilateral US actions to a full-scale global trade war, and outlines strategic responses for the UK

Aston University

An analysis by Aston University researchers is the first to estimate the economic fallout from six US trade tariff scenarios and their impact on trade flows, prices, production and welfare.

It underlines the precarity of the current moment for the UK and other world economies, and calls on swift, coordinated action from UK policymakers to mitigate risks and seize opportunities in an increasingly disrupted trade landscape.

US President Donald Trump’s tariffs in early 2025 have triggered a wave of reactions and retaliation. US imports from Mexico and Canada are subject to 25% tariffs, imported steel and aluminium tariffs are in place worldwide, tariffs on China have risen to 20%, car import tariffs are due to be imposed and countermeasures are rolling out across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

In their report, Tariffs and Triumph: The UK’s Edge in a Fractured World, Professor Jun Du and Dr Oleksandr Shepotylo, from Aston Business School’s Centre for Business Prosperity, model the potential global economic costs of US tariffs and outline a series of strategic responses for the UK.

Using core economic principles and a structured gravity approach – an economic framework that studies and quantifies the effects of various determinants of international trade – their report analyses 2023 bilateral export data and gross domestic product (GDP) for 132 countries. The report models welfare changes as measured by changes in real (net of inflation) income per capita.

Across the six potential scenarios, their key findings are:*

US initial tariffs: US prices rise 2.7% and real GPD per capita declines 0.9%. Welfare declines in Canada by 3.2% and Mexico by 5%.
Retaliation by Canada, Mexico and China: US loss deepens to 1.1%, welfare declines in Canada by 5.1% and Mexico by 7.1%.
US imposes 25% tariffs on EU goods: Sharp transatlantic trade contraction, EU production disruptions, US welfare declines 1.5%.
EU retaliates with 25% tariff on US goods: Prices rise across US and EU, mutual welfare losses and intensified negative outcomes for the US. UK experiences modest trade diversion benefits.
US global tariff: Severe global trade contraction and substantial price hikes substantially affect North American welfare and UK trade volumes.
Full global retaliation with reciprocal tariffs: Extensive global disruption and reduced trade flows, severe US welfare losses, $1.4 trillion global welfare loss projected.

For the UK, reductions in imports from the US expose critical vulnerabilities in UK supply chains, and under the worst-case scenario, UK exports to the US fall by 43.6%. Retaliatory tariff measures would also substantially reduce UK exports to other markets around the world, in particular to Mexico, and UK–EU trade would be reduced. However, in a scenario where the EU retaliates with tariffs US goods, UK exports to the US would potentially surge by 17.5%.**

Professor Jun Du said:

“The picture for tariff measures may not be clear at the moment, but what is clear is that economies like the UK need to plan for various eventualities and start to put mitigating measures in place. US tariffs offer the UK a potential fortune through trade diversions, yet these gains could complicate efforts to reset UK–EU relations, amplifying economic divergence, political distrust and misalignment. Our report will help policymakers look at the costs and benefits of the scenarios and develop a position to move forward.”

The report underlines that the UK’s post-Brexit status provides flexibility and greater agility in a shifting trade environment. While the tariffs highlight vulnerabilities for the UK, such as dependency on the US and EU markets, they also present openings for action, such as reconfiguring supply chains to include Japan and South Korea, and enhancing domestic production capacity, for example in electronics or automotive components.

Diversifying trade towards less affected regions, such as India and Asian markets, could mitigate impacts. The UK’s capacity to negotiate trade policies independently allows it to seize opportunities that will arise from shifting global trade dynamics.

To signal a commitment to continued European cooperation, the researchers recommend UK policymakers take a pragmatic approach in response to US tariffs that balance short-term gains with long-term stability. They suggest enhancing UK–EU supply chain coordination, taking a complementary rather than competitive stance by incorporating EU input in UK global trade negotiations, and aligning on calls to reform the World Trade Organisation (WTO). They also suggest pairing US bilateral trade talks with symbolic gestures to the EU, such as reviving the youth mobility scheme.

Dr Oleksandr Shepotylo says:

“Although we predict significant costs for the UK, there are also opportunities for leaders to employ rapid measures to mitigate against the risk of a full-scale trade war and enhance the UK’s position during this challenging time. We hope that our report will be read and used by those with decision-making powers to develop a strategy to move forward in uncertain times.”

To find out more about these findings, visit the research web page.

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Tariffs and Triumph: The UK’s Edge in a Fractured World

Article Publication Date

1-Apr-2025

North America is dripping from below, geoscientists discover

University of Texas at Austin

Cratonic dripping — image:
A figure from the study showing rock dripping from the craton. The researchers hypothesize that the dripping is caused by the remnants of the subducting Farallon slab below the craton.
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Credit: Nature Geoscience, Hua et al.

Researchers have discovered that the underside of the North American continent is dripping away in blobs of rock — and that the remnants of a tectonic plate sinking in the Earth’s mantle may be the reason why.

A paper published in Nature Geoscience describes the phenomenon, which was discovered at The University of Texas at Austin. It’s the first time that “cratonic thinning” may be captured in action.

“We made the observation that there could be something beneath the craton,” said the study’s lead author Junlin Hua, who conducted the research during a postdoctoral fellowship at UT’s Jackson School of Geosciences. “Luckily, we also got the new idea about what drives this thinning.”

Cratons are very old rocks that are part of Earth’s continents. They’re known for their stability and ability to persist for billions of years. But sometimes cratons undergo changes that can affect their stability or that remove entire rock layers.

For example, the North China Craton lost its deepest root layer millions of years ago.

What makes the discovery of cratonic dripping special, said the researchers, is that it’s happening right now. This allows scientists to observe the cratonic thinning process as it occurs.

The dripping is concentrated over the Midwest of the United States. There’s no need to worry about the continent hollowing out or the dripping changing the landscape anytime soon, the researchers assure. The mantle processes driving the dripping can influence how tectonic plates evolve over time – but they’re very slow going. What’s more, the dripping is expected to eventually stop as the remnants of the tectonic plate sinks deeper into the mantle and its influence over the craton fades.

The discovery is most important to geoscientists who study continents over their entire lifespan, said co-author Thorsten Becker, a professor at the Jackson School’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Institute for Geophysics.

“This sort of thing is important if we want to understand how a planet has evolved over a long time,” Becker said. “It helps us understand how do you make continents, how do you break them, and how do you recycle them [into the Earth.]”

The dripping discovery came out of a larger project led by Hua, who is now a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China, that created a new full-waveform seismic tomographic model for North America using an approach developed by co-author Stephen Grand, who is now a professor emeritus at the Jackson School, and his team. This computer model, which uses seismic data collected by the EarthScope project, revealed new details about the geologic processes happening in the crust and mantle underlying North America.

“Because of the use of this full-waveform method, we have a better representation of that important zone between the deep mantle and the shallower lithosphere where we would expect to get clues on what’s happening with the lithosphere,” Becker said.

This model brought the drips into view for the first time in this way. It also helped the researchers deduce that the Farallon Plate, an oceanic tectonic plate that has been subducting under North America for about the past 200 million years, could be driving the process despite being separated from the craton by about 600 kilometers.

The plate, which was first seismically imaged in the 1990s by Grand, played an important role in shaping the North American plate. The researchers think that it is now wearing away at the continent from below by redirecting the flow of mantle material so that it shears the bottom of the craton and by releasing volatile compounds that weaken its base.

Although the dripping is concentrated in one area of the craton, Hua said that the plate appears to be interacting with material from across the entire craton, which covers most of the United States and Canada.

“A very broad range is experiencing some thinning,” Hua said.

When the researchers built a computer model of these dynamics, the model craton dripped when the Farallon Plate was present. When the plate was removed, the dripping stopped.

Becker acknowledges that computer models have limitations. But the model’s resemblance to the data is a good sign, he said.

“You look at a model and say, ‘Is it real, are we overinterpreting the data or is it telling us something new about the Earth?,’” Becker said. “But it does look like in many places that these blobs come and go, that it’s [showing us] a real thing.”

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Jackson School of Geosciences and involved colleagues at University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, University of Nevada, Reno, and Southern University of Science and Technology.

Seismic waves pass through different geological features at different speeds. This map shows seismic speed in the Earth’s crust at 200 kilometers depth across the continental United States and portions of Central America and Canada. The North American craton (outlined in black dashes) has a high seismic velocity compared to its surroundings.

Credit

Nature Geoscience, Hua et al.