While most people stare at new notebooks and smartphones and think they see progress, there are other digital devices that get improved big time and rechargeable batteries are one of them. For instance, did you really think 15 years ago that there would be rechargeable batteries everywhere? Now we are on the brink of having batteries that can be recharged in a few minutes time and that can power cars for thousands of miles with no problems. How does that sound?
But before we get there we will introduce you to a new and promising battery technology – a team of scientists working for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the USA have found a new way of improving the popular Li-ion batteries around us. They used hydrogen at very low temperatures to change the structure of graphene used in these batteries and create micro defects inside this material. The resulting cracks get filled with lithium ions, which increase the overall capacity of the battery. In addition the battery can be recharged faster.
According to the scientists the new batteries can hold between 10 per cent and 40 per cent more energy and require 40 per cent less time to recharge but there are additional problems to be solved before the new technology enters mass production. In a few words the new technology needs some fine tuning but if everything goes well we might see the first such batteries in the next few years.
Source: Overclockers.ru