Lithium-Ion batteries that charge in seconds within 3yrs

Yes it is still early days but by the time it hits the air (hah!) it should be better...coupled with the new batteries though in the Op as I said could be interesting because any loss of efficiency would be minimised due to the battery being able to charge in a fraction of the time anyway?

We already have Li-On batteries that charge in less than 15 minutes, I have such a charger from Uniross and indeed my batteries charge to full in less than 15 minutes but of course over time these batteries weaken in charge capacity (plus they get hot whilst charging) and need to be regularly used to keep them in good shape but still need to be replaced once a year because they lose max capacity over that period - something this new method in the Op article says does not occur so you will get max charge capacity all the time.
 
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It says it is capable of discharging in the same time yeah - something you'd want in certain devices where a full discharge is ideal before a full charge, like a car!

You're not going to get only a few seconds use from a full charge before it dies, that would be silly ;p
 
divosuk said:
They didn't say how it compared in cost to Li-ion. Or how safe it was/corrosive, or how eco to manufacture. Or how likely it was to explode/outgass or overheat at very fast charge rates, or decompose due to fast charging.


And if it really was something amazing - NASA or the military would have snapped it up last week, and not released it to the public as quickly - as they both need something as interesting as this far more than the public does. Just think of all those military gadgets and all those solar powered Satalites.
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they said it was cheaper and didnt suffer from overheating...
Who's to say NASA and the military dont already have it? if it's a relatively simple change there's nothing to stop someone else coming up with it
 
divosuk said:
"A prototype battery"

They didn't say how it performed at non-room temperatures.
They didn't say what Current/voltage it was charged at.
They didn't say how it comared in cost to Li-ion. Or how safe it was/corrosive, or how eco to manufacture. Or how likely it was to explode/outgass or overheat at very fast charge rates, or decompose due to fast charging. Yes they did, they stated it would only be a small modification and cheap (maybe even cheaper due to using Lithium phosphate). The rest is seemingly implied by the fact it is only a small modification to preexisting technology, although I agree about the exploding/degassing
They didn't say how many charge cycles it would go through before it was useless (as they hadn't tested it) - fast charging usuaully reduces a rechargables expected life by 75%. They stated that this technology, coupled with lithium phosphate would be better than standard Li-ion batteries
They didn't say what happens if it's not properly discharged - or overcharged - or not charged according to the guidelines - a common problem with standard rechargeables.

And if it really was something amazing - NASA or the military would have snapped it up last week, and not released it to the public as quickly - as they both need something as interesting as this far more than the public does. Just think of all those military gadgets and all those solar powered Satalites.

Still reasonably interesting though - just show me it again in 3 years time to see if it really works away from the press hype ;)
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But yeah I agree with you, it won't be as spectacular as it seems now, and it definately won't be in seconds (the article even stated that, it just cut the charge time by about 6 times).

Abraham said:
they said it was cheaper and didnt suffer from overheating...
Who's to say NASA and the military dont already have it? if it's a relatively simple change there's nothing to stop someone else coming up with it
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NASA/Government probably part funded the research, there is a lot of research out there that is funded by these organisations. Unless it is top secret there really is no need to keep it a secret, especially something like this. If you think back there were/are loads of technologies that were designed as part of ilitary funding that were released to the public as soon as they were discovered.
 
I imagine one of the big electricity/oil/gas companies will buy the patent for a ridiculous sum of money and then hold it back.
 
All very well having a battery which can charge fast, but you need to be able to put the power into the battery at a rate which will allow fast charging. Would the national grid be able to provide such an amount of power considering the drain that happens when people turn on kettles during the commercial break in Eastenders etc!
 
Not having to replace batteries or being careful about how often you use it will be nice:

"The researchers found that their new material does not lose its capacity to charge over time in the way that standard lithium ion batteries do."
 
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/12/fast_charge_battery_bubble_stab/

:)

The Register article said:
In any case, Ceder and Kang - while apparently happy to speak to journalists of fast-charging, unless that was made up by the scribes - don't yet claim fast charging for their kit among their scientific peers. They have only proven fast discharging, as one finds when looking at their actual letter (abstract here: subscription required for the whole thing). MIT Tech Review, one of the few publications to bother looking properly, merely says "the fast-discharging materials may also recharge quickly".
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That's exactly what I was trying to say in my reply post.

They stated their new prototype 'could' potentially be charged.

At no point in the OP did the MIT team say they actually did get it to charge. And at no point did they say they actually did anything other than simulate a quick discharge (in the original Nature article) - their findings were just spun a bit to make it look as though they had managed some fantastic new method of chargin - when in fact they hadn't actually done anything other than put together a simulation on what they thought the charge rate would be based on a discharge rate they achieved on a prototype material.

It was absolute rubbish. In fact it was really rubbish reporting - poorly interpreted by some & nothing more.

As I said - show me something that works in 3 years time.
 
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