New space tech can charge electric cars in just five minutes: NASA

A new NASA-funded technology for future space missions may charge an electric car in just five minutes on Earth, paving way for increased option of such vehicles, US space agency said.

Researchers at Purdue University, US developed Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE) to enable two-phase fluid flow and heat transfer experiments to be conducted in long-duration microgravity environment on International Space Station (ISS).

new "subcooled flow boiling" technique results in greatly improved heat transfer effectiveness compared to or approaches and could be used to control temperatures of future systems in space.

This technology can also have applications on Earth: It could make owning an electric car more appealing, researchers said.

Currently, charging times vary widely, from 20 minutes at a station alongside a roway to hours using an at-home charging station.

Lengthy charging times and charger location are both cited as major concerns of people who are considering electric vehicle ownership.

Reducing charging time for electric vehicles to five minutes -- an industry goal -- will require charging systems to provide current at 1,400 amperes.

Currently, vanced chargers only deliver currents up to 520 amperes, and most chargers available to consumers support currents of less than 150 amperes.

However, charging systems providing 1,400 amperes will generate significantly more heat than current systems, and will require improved methods to control temperature.

Recently, team applied technique learned from NASA FBCE experiments to electric vehicle charging process.

Using this new technology, dielectric -- non-electrically conducting -- liquid coolant is pumped through charging cable, where it captures heat generated by current-carrying conductor.

Subcooled flow boiling allows team to deliver 4.6 times current of fastest available electric vehicle chargers on market today by removing up to 24.22 kilowatts of heat, researchers said.

charging cable can provide 2,400 amperes, which is far beyond 1,400 amperes required to reduce time required to charge an electric car to five minutes, y said.

"Application of this new technology resulted in unprecedented reduction of time required to charge a vehicle and may remove one of key barriers to worldwide option of electric vehicles," researchers ded.