Is Quantum Charging the Golden Goose of BEV Charging? IBS Thinks So!

Korea's Institute for Basic Science or IBS has announced that they believe quantum charging of EV batteries will cut home charging from 10 hours to 3 minutes and public fast charging from 30 minutes to 9 seconds.

As society moves to renewable energy or green energy due to humanity outstripping the ability for finite nature fossil fuels to support, one must also consider on how that energy gets to the end user. R&D around the world into renewable sources has accompanied the gradual societal changes of the world adopting new products and devices running on new storage supported by the option to choose your power supply and in this case renewable or green energy.

The rapid adoption of electric vehicles, while hardly seen on roads 10 years ago, now account for millions being sold and a common sight. As a rapidly growing segment, one item holds back massive adoption of the less complex, cleaner running electric-vehicle, CHARGING!

Tesla has their worldwide Supercharging network but even that is not yet at the 800V fast charging that some like Porsche, GMC-Hummer and a few others are supporting and the fast-charging stations still are rare so getting a fast charge in 15 minutes is rare compared to a more common charge from home at 110v or 220v charging overnight leaving people to either sit at a fast charging station for 30 to 45 minutes or park, charge while shopping or eating to pass the time.

For the longest time, batteries have had the traditional lead/acid storage medium with far lower density than that offered by hydrocarbons, resulting in short range for electric autos. Battery technology has improved in allowing Tesla to have some of the first 300-mile range EVs. Others like GM with their Chevrolet Bolt have had over 200 plus miles allowing for solid performing commuter autos. Battery storage technology is the main bottleneck to moving from ICE to electric autos and only recently has lithium-ion batteries gotten to a solid point where various options are now coming onto the market in truck and SUV form in addition the rapidly shrinking market for cars.

Despite the advances in battery tech, recharging these massive battery packs is still up to a 10 hour overnight charging at home or a 20-to-40-minute recharge at a Tesla Super Station. Oil companies are buying up charging startup companies to ensure they keep their gas stations modern by moving to a convenience station that offers both ICE and EV charging along with shopping, eating, etc. Still the speed of charging is a problem and with those two things are on the horizon, solid-state batteries and new ways to charge said batteries.

As new problems show up, new approaches are found and in this, the mysterious field of Quantum Physics. Current research is allowing for discovery on new quantum technologies that promise the delivery of faster charging rates to both existing lithium-ion batteries and the upcoming solid-state batteries. This approach is the "Collective versus Parallel" charging which was actually published in 2012 by Alicki and Fannes about the concept of Quantum battery. QUOTE: "The paper theorized that quantum resources, such as entanglement, can be used to vastly speed up the battery charging process by charging all cells within the battery simultaneously in a collective manner."

This Quantum Charging Advantage can be taken advantage of by the fact that a Tesla has numerous cells in their large battery pack. This would allow charging of all cells in collective versus todays approach of a parallel or serial charging system.

The IBS has a Center for Theoretical Physics of Complex Systems which explored in depth the questions surrounding Quantum charging, the research showed that the presence of global operations is the only ingredient needed in the quantum advantage. This group has pinpointed the exact source of this advantage while ruling out any other possibilities per the release from IBS including an explicit way to design such batteries that can handle a Quantum Charging approach.

QUOTE of the IBS Press Release:

 the group was able to precisely quantify how much charging speed can be achieved in this scheme. While the maximum charging speed increases linearly with the number of cells in classical batteries, the study showed that quantum batteries employing global operation can achieve quadratic scaling in charging speed. To illustrate this, we will consider a typical electric vehicle with a battery that contains about 200 cells. Employing this quantum charging would lead to a 200 times speedup over classical batteries, which means that at home charging time would be cut from 10 hours to about 3 minutes. At high-speed charging stations, the charge time would be cut from 30 minutes to mere seconds.

Researchers say that consequences can be far-reaching and that the implications of quantum charging can go well beyond electric cars and consumer electronics. For example, it may find key uses in future fusion power plants, which require large amounts of energy to be charged and discharged in an instant. Of course, quantum technologies are still in their infancy and there is a long way to go before these methods can be implemented in practice. Research findings such as these, however, create a promising direction and can incentivize the funding agencies and businesses to further invest in these technologies. If employed, it is believed that quantum batteries would completely revolutionize the way we use energy and take us a step closer to our sustainable future.

For people used to technology, we have seen companies like IBM invest in Quantum computing with amazing results that have accelerated computing direction over the last two decades to super computers being the size of a smartphone.

This same research and approach is being looked into by the existing battery companies such as LG, Samsung and more. While we will not see Quantum battery packs or chargers by 2025, with the advance pace of Solid-State batteries, one could very well see the first few implementations of Quantum battery packs by 2030 as well as chargers.

One might wonder is there any company out there that is already looking to commercialize this Quantum Charging technology other than being a theoretical paper from a school such as IBS of Korea?

I give you ACT - Advanced Charging technologies of Texas. An American tech company that has been focused on keeping technology at the forefront of their products and services. While this is not a fully Quantum Charging solution that IBS has published in theory, it is a charging solution for warehouse forklifts that uses the cloud with collective charging of multiple battery packs to ensure forklift needs are available at all times.

As ACT has stated about their Quantum Technology

• Uninterrupted operations due to built-in redundancy and modular design
• Wireless cloud integration with ACTview and ACTintelligent software
• Remote software and firmware updates
• Reduced power consumption and costs
• Intuitive user interface

A smart-grid-ready solution-focused charging solution that reduces maintenance and replacement costs. Quantum Charging is about being all aware to ensure all cells are being given what they need to get fully charged as fast as possible.

One can do searches and find many different Quantum chargers. Some are in name only it would seem, where others are clearly focused on recharging battery packs for use in the medical field to industry such as autos. Consider a 100 kWh battery pack that has over 200 cells and how a quantum battery charger would talk to all cells at the same time, giving each cell what it needs to reach 100% fully charged, thus reducing the charge cycle and giving a faster response to fully charged desire.

Interested in more research papers, check out their engineering paper site: Institute for Basic Science (ibs.re.kr)

New technology to make charging electric cars as fast as pumping gas (ibs.re.kr)

Institute for Basic Science (ibs.re.kr)

Advanced Charging Technologies | <span class="notranslate">Quantum</span> (act-chargers.com)