Categories: Channel News

Rethinking Inside The Box Brings ‘Super Battery’ Breakthrough

Researchers are claiming a breakthrough which promises to increase substantially the power of batteries, or at least dramatically reduce their physical size. Scientists at the University of Illinois revealed the breakthrough in the journal Nature Communications.

They claim to have developed a new lithium-ion battery microarchitecture, which can concurrently optimise ion and electron transport for high-power delivery.

Power of 3D

This new micro-architecture theoretically could allow the manufacturer to build a battery of a similar size to the current generation of lithium ion batteries found in today’s smartphones, but with thirty times the power. This architecture could be tweaked to allow for much smaller batteries to be designed and built to power a range of more-compact tech gadgets. Researchers claim their technology could reduce the size of batteries ten-fold while offering the same power.

The team in Illinois have used “3D-electrodes” which allow these new super batteries to be recharged 1,000 times faster than the current generation of batteries.

When a device such a smartphone or tablet is connected to a battery, an electrochemical reaction occurs to produce energy. The battery itself has three parts, an anode, cathode and the electrolyte in which they are immersed. The team has reduced the size of the anode and cathode and their three-dimensional designs offer a greater surface are in contact with the electrolyte.

This first appeared on TechWeekEurope UK. Read the whole story here.

Eric Doyle

Eric is a veteran British tech journalist with expertise in security, the channel, and Britain's startup culture

View Comments

  • What a delight to see no split infinitives in a piece of writing, but what happened to the alternative in.....

    "allow the manufacturer EITHER to build a battery of a similar size to the current generation of lithium ion batteries" OR.....what?

    • Thanks for your kind words and your eagle-eyed discovery of our oversight (which has now been corrected). Since Star Trek boldly went where no British scholar of grammar went before, split infinitives arguably have (sorry) become more acceptable - certainly more common. Sometimes the avoidance of split infinitives can change the meaning of what is being said. Consider:
      You really have to watch him
      You have to really watch him

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