Next-gen lithium-ion battery charges 20x faster, lasts 20x longer

tweaktown.com ^ | 1 hour, 33 mins ago Oct 13, 2014 | Anthony Garreffa

[PapaBear3625]

Lasts twenty times as long probably means that it will hold a charge twenty times longer while not being used.

Or will survive more charging cycles before it dies. Lithium batteries only have a limited number of recharges, before the amount of power they will hold starts going down.

[familyop]

"The real question is how do you pump that many kwhrs that fast without creating massive heat and electrical spikes?"

Yes! That would be quite a load under the circumstance. Maybe they'll add a load of gold to the design to lower the resistance.

;-)

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Lasts twenty times as long probably means that it will hold a charge twenty times longer while not being used.

Or will survive more charging cycles before it dies. Lithium batteries only have a limited number of recharges, before the amount of power they will hold starts going down.

All other hype aside, I take the statement to mean that this “titanium dioxide gel anode” reduces the internal resistance of the lithium battery enough to allow, supposedly, 20x current charging without reducing the number of charge/discharge cycles the battery can endure before degrading. Alternatively, I suppose, the same battery could withstand 20x the number of charge/discharge cycles if charged at the normal (not 20x faster) rate.

The only thing I don’t understand, based on this theory, is why the same battery that can be charged 20x as fast wouldn’t also be able to efficiently discharge at the same 20x rate. And why, if such be the case, the researcher didn’t make that claim.

[PapaBear3625]

Rather than continue to guess, I went and googled up the Science Daily article that the original post was clumsily summarizing.

The article says: The new battery will be able to endure more than 10,000 charging cycles -- 20 times more than the current 500 cycles of today's batteries.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

But will it be available in a form factor that will retrofit to existing devices?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

If by “last 20x as long” they mean the storage capacity and not the useful lifetime of the battery then this is truly awesome!

Yes...it is interesting how that claim is only mentioned in the headline with no details in the article. Methinks the "20x" refers to the useful lifetime. Otherwise, they'd be trumpeting this as the main feature and charge time would be a close second but not as nearly as mind blowing.

[ChildOfThe60s]

It’s several years away at best. We’re all liable to be more concerned with where our next meal is coming from by then.

I want to see a big leap in ammo technology that will get me 5.56 at 5¢ a round. Now that would be useful.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Rather than continue to guess, I went and googled up the Science Daily article that the original post was clumsily summarizing.

The article says: "The new battery will be able to endure more than 10,000 charging cycles -- 20 times more than the current 500 cycles of today's batteries."

Great research there, Papa. No claim there of any other virtues than tolerance of high charge rates and the ability to operate after 10,000 charging cycles. Only that it will be easy to make and, inferentially, similar in cost to the conventional Lithium battery as we know it.

But since 10,000 charging cycles is, for many applications, effectively infinite - most devices with such a battery would either fail for other reasons or become completely obsolete before the 10,000th cycle - the value proposition is excellent for such a battery if indeed it isn’t dramatically more expensive to make.

The only downside I see to the adoption of this is that certain people who love to complain about the non-replacibility of batteries in Apple’s products will have to find some other hobby horse to ride.

[thackney]

The new battery will be able to endure more than 10,000 charging cycles -- 20 times more than the current 500 cycles of today's batteries.

Today's batteries are seem to be a lot better than only good for 500 cycles. If you had an all electric, charged overnight, drove to work and recharged there, this would mean batteries would need to be replaced a little more than every year.

[GeronL]

If it charges 20x faster, that is the thing that deserves the attention

[kevkrom]

Today's batteries are seem to be a lot better than only good for 500 cycles.

That's full discharge/recharge cycles. If you're only draining half before charging, you'd get (roughly) twice as many charges.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

If it charges 20x faster, that is the thing that deserves the attention

It certainly could affect the tradeoff between battery weight and the need to avoid having to recharge. If you get a 70% charge in only 2 minutes as claimed, you might want a lighter product and be willing to live with the need for one recharge during the day . . .

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

It’s easy to speculate that the researchers are hopelessly optimistic about getting this technology to market in 2 years.

OTOH if Apple were to throw in on it in order to make better laptops and iPhones, maybe the idea isn’t really that farfetched.

The sapphire idea seems to have flopped, tho.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I want to see a big leap in ammo technology that will get me 5.56 at 5¢ a round. Now that would be useful.

That would be heavenly.

[thackney]

That still sounds shorter life than reality.

[PapaBear3625]

It certainly could affect the tradeoff between battery weight and the need to avoid having to recharge. If you get a 70% charge in only 2 minutes as claimed, you might want a lighter product and be willing to live with the need for one recharge during the day . . .

The technology would see application in cell phones and tablets before cars.

[kevkrom]

Well, the battery doesn’t just die at that point, it just continues to degrade how much charge it can hold below the threshold set for “battery life”.

[kevkrom]

The technology would see application in cell phones and tablets before cars.

I dunno, with the amperage and voltage calculations upthread, I don't see this coming to a home near you anytime soon, but rather at industrial-grade charging stations.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The technology would see application in cell phones and tablets before cars.

I agree, because cars are a pretty questionable application without an increase in energy density of no less than a factor of two.

Even so, this tech might make hybrid cars a little less impractical. Slashing the objection of high life-cycle battery cost would be a real plus. Could be that a smaller battery in your hybrid, deeply cycled, would actually work OK.

But I don’t understand a hybrid powered by gasoline; if you’re going hybrid you should exploit the flexibility of the electric energy storage/retrieval to make a really drivable diesel. If you are going hybrid you are going all out for fuel efficiency - and if you’re using a gasoline engine instead of a diesel to get fuel economy, you aren’t really trying.