Tag Archives: Lithium Ion

Nissan may stop making its own electric car batteries

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Nissan has long made its own electric car batteries thanks to Automotive Energy Supply, its team-up with NEC, but it appears to be having second thoughts. Sources speaking to both Nikkei and Reuters understand that Nissan plans to sell its controllin...

Huawei can quick-charge your phone without hurting its battery

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That fast-charging smartphone you just bought has a dirty secret: more likely than not, it's reducing the lifespan or capacity of the battery to get that breakneck speed. Huawei doesn't think you should have to compromise, though. It just showed o...

Tiny lithium-ion battery recharges 1000x faster than rival tech, could shrink mobile devices

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Researchers devise 'most powerful' batteries in the world, shame supercapacitors

Supercapacitors are often hailed as the holy grail of power supplies, but a group of researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a lithium-ion microbattery that leaves that prized solution in the dust, recharging 1,000 times faster than competing tech. Previous work done by Professor William P. King, who led the current effort, resulted in a fast-charging cathode with a 3D microstructure, and now the team has achieved a breakthrough by pairing it with an anode devised in a similar fashion.

The resulting battery is said to be the most powerful in the world, avoiding the usual trade-off between longevity and power while having a footprint of just a few millimeters. By altering its composition, scientists can even optimize the contraption for more juice or increased life. It's expected that the technology could make devices 30 times smaller and help broadcast radio signals up to 30 times farther, but it'll still be a while before it winds up in a super-slim phone within your pocket. For now, the researchers have their sights set on integrating the tech with other electronic components and investigating low-cost manufacturing.

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Via: Eureka Alert

Source: University of Illinois News Bureau

Ask Engadget: how long should I first-charge a battery?

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Ask Engadget how long should I firstcharge a battery

We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Bernard, who wants an answer to the age-old question of ensuring you get the most out of your batteries. If you're looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

"It's said that you should always leave brand-new electronics plugged in for 'a few hours' after being fully charged, but how do you decide that period of time? Is there a calculation depending on the capacity of the battery, or what? Help me, please!"

Nowadays, do you even need to? While memory effect was an issue on NiCad batteries, Lithium Ion units don't suffer from the same issue. It could also be tied to the belief that most chargers only re-juice batteries up to 95 percent, but we can't find any authoritative proof on the matter. Let's turn it over to the electrical engineers and battery experts who read Engadget on a regular basis so we can sort this out, once and for all!

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Stretchable, serpentine lithium-ion battery works at three times its usual size

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Stretchable, serpentine lithiumion battery works at three times its size

While we've seen more than a few flexible batteries in our day, they're not usually that great at withstanding tugs and pulls. A team-up between Northwestern University and the University of Illinois could give lithium-ion batteries that extreme elasticity with few of the drawbacks you'd expect. To make a stretchable battery that still maintains a typical density, researchers built electrode interconnects from serpentine metal wires that have even more wavy wires inside; the wires don't require much space in normal use, but will unfurl in an ordered sequence as they're pulled to their limits. The result is a prototype battery that can expand to three times its normal size, but can still last for eight to nine hours. It could also charge wirelessly, and thus would be wearable under the skin as well as over -- imagine fully powered implants where an external battery is impractical or unsightly. There's no word yet on whether there will be refined versions coming to real-world products, but we hope any developments arrive quickly enough to give stretchable electronics a viable power source.

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Via: ScienceDaily

Source: Nature

WSJ: Airbus to drop lithium-ion batteries from A350 to meet delivery schedule

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Airbus dropping lithiumion batteries from the A350 in the interest of timeliness

Amidst the ongoing brouhaha over rival Boeing's Dreamliner-grounding battery troubles, Airbus has decided not to use lithium-ion batteries in its newest aircraft, the A350, according to industry officials cited by the Wall Street Journal. The European plane maker is said to be making the change in an effort to stick to its plan of pressing the jet into commercial service by the middle of next year. While the craft's early test flights this summer will still make use of four lithium-ion batteries for on-ground electrical power and as backup in the air as originally intended, it will be delivered to airlines with conventional nickel-cadmium batteries instead. Safety considerations are undoubtedly part of the picture, but since the A350 is already behind schedule by a couple of years, its manufacturer can't afford any further delays -- anticipated in case regulators find fault with the use of lithium-ion packs in flights. As Boeing struggles to find a fix and get the 787 back into the air, it seems Airbus has taken the easy way out.

[Image credit: Airbus S.A.S / H. Goussé]

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Source: Wall Street Journal

USC battery wields silicon nanowires to hold triple the energy, charge in 10 minutes

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USC battery wields silicon nanowires to hold triple the energy, charge in 10 minutes

There's no shortage of attempts to build a better battery, usually with a few caveats. USC may have ticked all the right checkboxes with its latest discovery, however. Its use of porous, flexible silicon nanowires for the anodes in a lithium-ion battery delivers the high capacity, fast recharging and low costs that come with silicon, but without the fragility of earlier attempts relying on simpler silicon plates. In practice, the battery could deliver the best of all worlds. Triple the capacity of today's batteries? Full recharges in 10 minutes? More than 2,000 charging cycles? Check. It all sounds a bit fantastical, but USC does see real-world use on the horizon. Researchers estimate that there should be products with silicon-equipped lithium-ion packs inside of two to three years, which isn't long to wait if the invention saves us from constantly hunting for the nearest wall outlet.

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Via: Gizmodo

Source: USC