A new way of measuring the internal temperatures of lithium-ion batteries has revealed that they could be safely charged up to five-times faster than is currently recommended.

Researchers at Warwick University (www.warwick.ac.uk), who created a new sensor that works during a battery’s normal operation without affecting its performance, said that manufacturers have previously relied on unreliable external methods and have set very conservative limits as a result.

Tazdin Amietszajew, the lead researcher on the work, which was published in the journal Electrochimica Acta, said: “Faster charging as always comes at the expense of overall battery life, but many consumers would welcome the ability to charge a vehicle battery quickly when short journey times are required and then switch to standard charge periods at other times.

"Having that flexibility in charging strategies might even — further down the line — help consumers benefit from financial incentives from power companies seeking to balance grid supplies using vehicles connected to the grid.”

The technology has been tested on commercially available vehicle batteries, but the researchers have said that more work would need to be done on battery management systems to take advantage of their findings.