If all Toshiba’s
claims about its new lithium-ion battery are true, the only disappointing thing about it is the 2006 ship date. That, and the fact that the nano-particle enhanced lithium-ion batteries are first going into industrial and automotive applications, along with hybrid and EV cars.
According to Toshiba, the 3.8mm thick, 62mm high and 35mm deep prototype lithium-ion battery takes only a minute to charge up to 80% of its 600mAh capacity. For comparison, the battery inside a 4th gen iPod holds 950mAh, takes an hour to charge up to 80%, and roughly 4 hours to reach a 100% charge. According to Toshiba, its new battery “takes only a few more minutes” to reach a full charge.
A fast recharge isn’t the only benefit Toshiba’s touting for this design. They claim it loses only 1% of its capacity after 1,000 charge and recharge cycles, and can still deliver 80% of its capacity even when chilled to minus 40 degrees centigrade.
With specs like that, it’s no surprise that Toshiba is offering little detail on just what they’ve done to the lithium-ion design.
Toshiba’s announcement attributes the performance to nano-particles applied to the negative electrode of the battery. No details on the compositional makeup of the nano-particles is available from Toshiba at this time, but Toshiba tells us that the nano-particles prevent “organic liquid electrolytes from reducing during battery recharging.” The end result is that the battery can “quickly absorb and store vast amount of lithium ions” ie, it can charge fast, “without causing any deterioration in the electrode.”
We can only hope that the production version of the battery lives up to the claims in this announcement. More importantly, we hope that Toshiba can keep up with the demand, and make enough of them to keep the prices low.
That way the battery packs will quickly trickle down into the world of power hungry notebooks, iPods, PSPs and whatever other sundry gadgets you can think of that would benefit from a battery that can recharge 80% of its capacity in a minute, and take halfway to forever to wear out.
For more information you can read Toshiba’s press release: Toshiba’s New Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery Recharges in Only One Minute.
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