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Lamborghini and MIT discover new battery material, will be used in their EV lineup

February 05, 2024

Lamborghini and MIT have collaborated to discover a new material for lithium-ion batteries.

The new battery material consists of many layers of TAQ (bis-tetraaminobenzoquinone), an organic small molecule. This material is highly stable and insoluble, which prevents it from dissolving into the battery electrolyte and extends its lifetime. Tests showed that its conductivity and storage capacity were comparable to traditional cobalt-containing batteries. Furthermore, batteries with a TAQ cathode can be charged and discharged faster than existing batteries.

TAQ’s energy density is 50% better than one of the most common lithium-ion battery chemistries, nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC). The structure of TAQ is similar to graphite, which is commonly used as an anode material. Each TAQ molecule can attract up to six others through hydrogen bonds, creating a nearly flat sheet that can be layered atop each other, with the holes storing lithium ions.

The primary materials needed to manufacture this type of cathode are a quinone precursor and an amine precursor, which are already commercially available and produced in large quantities as commodity chemicals. The researchers estimate that the material cost of assembling these organic batteries could be about one-third to one-half the cost of cobalt batteries.

The discovery of TAQ was made by Tianyang Chen and Harish Banda in the lab of Mircea Dincă, a professor at MIT. Lamborghini, which has a partnership with Dincă, has licensed the patent on the material. The company previously used a supercapacitor developed in Dincă’s lab in its Sian model.