News

North Carolina State Gets Funding on Hybrid Battery Research

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 08/06/09

North Carolina State University in Raleigh has garnered a $1.3 million grant from the United States Department of Energy to work on improving the batteries used in hybrid vehicles. The grant was part of an $11 million federal investment in projects involving electric drive vehicle battery technologies.

The university's Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM) Systems Center will use the money to research development and use of electrospinning technology to integrate lithium alloy and carbon into novel composite nanofiber anodes. These, according to the research center, hold more energy, cost less, can be produced in large quantities easily, and tolerate abuse better than materials found in existing batteries. The research is being led by Xiangwu Zhang, an assistant professor of textile engineering.

Formed in 2008 by a five-year, $18.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, the FREEDM Systems Center is developing ways to speed renewable electric-energy technologies. The center includes energy experts from seven universities in the United States and Europe, including Arizona State University in Tempe and Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla.