uni'wissen 01-2012_ENG

Bye-Bye Gasoline Prices by Felix Austen Plug it in, charge it up, drive away: This could be the key to mobility in the future. But electric cars need better energy storage solutions in order to establish themselves on the market. Photo: arsdigital/Fotolia It’s a phenomenon known to many: You drink too much at the party, have too little to eat, or eat too many potato chips and then forget to drink a glass of water when you get home. The consequences are a lack of electrolytes and a headache. Prof. Dr. Ingo Krossing from the Uni versity of Freiburg has a similar problem. He too is suffering from headaches due to electrolytes, but for a different reason. Electrolytes are liquids containing dissolved salts that make them elec trically conductive. Krossing holds the universi ty’s chair in molecular and coordination chemistry and is developing a completely new kind of electrolyte at the Freiburg Materials Research Center to help the electric car finally achieve its breakthrough. Plans for electric motors to displace the com bustion engine in cars have not been very success ful so far. Despite considerable research efforts, only a fraction of the one million electric cars the German federal government Scientists at the University of Freiburg Are Developing Chemicals to Make Batteries More Powerful and Electric Cars More Popular 32

uni'wissen 01-2012_ENG

Pages