Battery Life Breakthrough Could Increase Capacity by 800%
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 11.12.08
Photo of Professor Cho Jaephil via Hanyang University
Could this man be responsible for extending laptop battery life to 16 or 32 hours? A team of researchers at South Korea's Hanyung University led by professor Cho Jaephil (pictured), has claimed a breakthrough that could extend lithium ion battery charge life up to 8 times current values. Such a breakthrough is big news, not just for shiny gadgets but for electric vehicles and micro-generation as well. What is the key to the breakthrough?
The limiting factor in current battery technology is the ability of the cathode material, graphite, to store lithium ions. Cho Jaephil's team applied a three-dimensional porous silicon, which can hold up to eight times more lithium ions. Patent applications are being applied for, and potential applications in solar panel technology may be next on the Hanyung team's agenda.
Thanks to Tipster Henry Finn!
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Wow. Good news.
Hopefully they are cheap(i doubt it because of silicon).
Good for cars too. Less the battery pack weight, more miles for electric cars.
I hope this is not just another fake Korean breakthrough because of Korean inferior complex. I remember 2004 about their fake cloning.
That would be really useful, because I'm planning on getting a brand-new laptop, and of course, I don't want the battery to die after few hours of use.
Asuming it's real, great news! But the energy density would be quite high by today's standards, so these batteries better be really stable because a fire or explosion would be far worse than current designs.
If not, perhaps their best use would be to make the battery much smaller and lighter while holding roughly the same amount of total energy as today.
This kinda news makes me giddy with joy!!
Battery break through mean the end to large amounts coal.
are they really talking energy density, or are they talking about self discharge time?
Well, nothing we havent heard before. I think we had new materials last year that was supposed to double them but where are they?
It is a bit confusing. Graphite is used in the anode for a lithium polymer battery, not cathode.
Unfortunately, it does not say if the porus Silicon is flexible (maybe its a powder?). If it is rigid it will be difficult to make into batteries. Nearly all batteries are either rolled or folded. It usually takes many years for battery technology in a laboratory to get into production.
The bigger bottleneck in batteries is improving cathode performance.
This is Great! ...little math problem.
8 times more => is actually 700% improvement.
1 times is 0% improvement, right?
(...just same battery at 1 times)
I tend to not get excited at this kind of thing anymore. Too many times have I been let down.
On the face of it this looks very promising, although I will not be holding my breath. It's got a long way to go yet before we can say it is a commercially viable product!
As someone who uses a laptop and netbook regularly I am crying out for better battery technology.
As Matt points out graphite is used as the anode material for Li-ion batteries. I actually do research on Si-based anodes and the main problem is the cyclability of the anode. Sure silicon may have a much higher specific capacity but it doesn't last nearly as long; it also happens to be much more expensive. So, unfortunately, I would say this story is just hype.
Did someone at Stanford already do this two years ago, or am I just a confused non-science person way over my head?
You may find more technical info on this at GreenCarCongress here:
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/11/3d-porous-silic.html#more