battery

Researchers at MIT have developed a solution to one of the long standing problems of battery technology - charging time. Although rechargeable lithium batteries are ideal because they have a high energy density (meaning they can store a lot of charge), the downside is that they have slow power rates, making charging and discharging a sluggish process. MIT Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Gerbrand Ceder and graduate student Byoungwoo Kang have discovered a way to speed up the process.

Scientists have long thought that the power rates of lithium batteries were slow because the lithium ions responsible for carrying charge across the battery material simply can't move quickly. About five years ago, Ceder and a colleague ran computer simulations using lithium iron phosphate, a well-known battery material. The results predicted that the lithium ions should actually be moving extremely fast. Ceder figured "If transport of the lithium ions was so fast, something else had to be the

Researchers at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea announced today that they have developed new technology that could extend the life of lithium batteries by eight or more times. The research team, led by applied chemistry professor Cho Jae-phil, says that the technology can be applied to both laptop and mobile phone batteries.

The researchers were able to achieve these results by replacing graphite as the main material in the negative electrode. They used three-dimensional porous silicon particles made from silica and hydrogen fluoride instead. Though scientists have known about silicon's potential to be used in

In a continuation of an MIT project last year, Intel demonstrated on Thursday that charging your devices without plugging them in is possible. In a demonstration in San Francisco, Intel showed the potential of wireless power transmission by powering a 60 Watt light bulb from a distance of three feet. Not only did it succeed, but it succeeded with high efficiency. They lost about a quarter of the initial energy during the transfer which, according to Intel's chief technology officer Justin Rattner, was "the most striking part about it: transmitting 60 watts at 75 percent efficiency over several feet... The power pack for your laptop isn't that efficient."

Wireless energy transmission uses electric coils that, by resonating at the same frequency, can transmit power to each other. The biggest problem is power loss over distance. Another obstacle to overcome is the size of the coils - the ones used in the MIT and Intel demonstrations were far too big

Idaho based M2E power has recently been working to bring kinetic energy to mobile phones. Kinetic energy has been used to power watches for some time now and M2E sees potential for it to be used for mobile phone chargers and eventually in the phones themselves. M2E is expected to announce an external charger later this month or early next month.

The technology, which operates on Faraday's law of induction, creates energy by passing a magnet through a conductive coil. According to M2E, the "technology is based on a generator function and is best measured by power created over time with a certain type of motion." M2E has designed a system that supposedly can deliver from 300 to 700 percent more energy than currently available kinetic energy

Angstrom Power Inc., a Vancouver based micro fuel cell company, has developed a new technology dubbed EverOn that, so far, promises to replace lithium batteries in the very near future. The technology offers twice the run time of lithium batteries and a recharge time of about 10 minutes.

What's more is that they have already completed a six month test of their fuel cells fully integrated into mobile devices. The test was run with Angstrom's Micro Hydrogen platform fully integrated into