The collaboration between Automobili Lamborghini and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has produced a major initial result: a patent for an innovative synthetic material that will serve as the technological base for a new generation of supercapacitors.
Supercapacitors represent a winning solution in high-performance motorsport applications by virtue of their exceptional power and durability specifications, and they promise to become an essential technology for years to come. The collaboration began three years ago when Automobili Lamborghini joined the MIT-Italy Program, and took a further step forward in 2017 with the launch of two research projects.
The new patented material is based on the “Metal-Organic Frameworks” (MOF) concept. The molecular structure of this family of materials makes it the ideal candidate for producing electrodes for high performance supercapacitors of the future, because it maximizes the specific surface area, i.e. the amount of surface area exposed to electric charge in relation to the mass and volume of the sample. More specifically, the stated goal of the research is to improve the energy density: the patent filed promises to increase this density by up to 100% compared to the technology currently on the market.
Automobili Lamborghini is a co-author of this patent. Further research will explore additional optimization of the properties of the material, and its production on an increasingly larger scale. More broadly, this result is part of the shift towards electric vehicles technology Automobili Lamborghini undertook in 2017.
A second, three-year collaboration aims to establish new design principles for high-performance battery materials that can be integrated into the vehicle structure. The project will result in battery prototypes that provide a combination of energy storage performance, geometric versatility, and structural integrity that is critical to the performance targets..
Source: Press Release
