Toshiba's One-Minute-Recharge Li-ion Batteries

TheGuano writes "No idea if this is related to Altair's six-minute-charge Li-ions,, but Toshiba has just announced a similar Li-ion that recharges to 80% capacity in one minute, while losing only 1% total capacity after 1000 cycles. It's set to debut in 2006 for use in hybrid cars (my current Toshiba Satellite doesn't get very far on battery power, but it's a beautiful shade of blue), but 'should' make its way to other, hopefully smaller devices eventually."

Nice but...

[klatty (871061)]

I'm still waiting out for wireless power :-D

Wireless?

[AtariAmarok (451306)]

"I'm still waiting out for wireless power :-D"

That's fine, but how about my nutty idea? Imagine a service where music could be transmitted wirelessly, and you could have a receiving device even smaller than an iPod to listen to the music with. I wonder if anyone would or could ever invent something like this?

Different recharging techniques.

[sanityspeech (823537)]

To answer the submitter's implied question (i.e. No idea if this is related to Altair's six-minute-charge Li-ions...) I would have to say that it is unlikely that both are using the same technology.

From the New Scientist article:

Altair's patented modification is ... achieved using a carefully controlled sequence of evaporative steps when making the lithium titanate [nano]crystals.

From the press release by Toshiba:

A breakthrough technology applied to the negative electrode uses new nano-particles to prevent organic liquid electrolytes from reducing during battery recharging. The nano-particles quickly absorb and store vast amount of lithium ions, without causing any deterioration in the electrode.

It would be futile for Toshiba to try to mimic Altair, since the New Scientist article also states:

...The firm is keeping the chemistry that allows it to do this pretty close to its chest for commercial reasons. But the patent (US 6689716) reveals that the increased surface area is achieved using a carefully controlled sequence of evaporative steps when making the lithium titanate crystals.

Re:sigh heard round the world

[by Anonymous Coward]

women sigh round the world heavily, while dreaming of AA size waterproof versions.

Huh why?

Oh wait a minute... you mean when they get caught out in the rain.. don't you?

Re:sigh heard round the world

[iggymanz (596061)]

and the goat.se guy is wondering if this technology could be used to make 24V deep cycle marine batteries for his 90 lbs. jack hammer

I'm a beta tester...

[by Anonymous Coward]

Ok...I just charged these things for exactly one minute. Everything is working fine so fariweofaidfoiafoaif

Fantastic for travelers

[mytest23 (172505)]

I regularly run through airports leeching power briefly between flights. I would pay handsomely to recharge 80% in a minute my: Laptop, Cell Phone, Video Camera Batteries, etc.

There go the circuit breakers

[JoeBuck (7947)]

If you can put the same power into your battery in one minute that your laptop sucks out in two hours, it follows that, for that one minute, your battery sucks 120x the power. So, if your laptop uses 100W or power, you need 12 kW for a minute to recharge it. It's going to take a special circuit to deliver that power (100 amps at 120V).

Re:There go the circuit breakers

[wramsdel (463149)]

The extended-life battery for my laptop is 7.4V, 7800 mAH, discharge rate not stated. That implies that its capacity is 57.72WH. Given that I can run my laptop for ~4 hours on this battery, I think it's safe to say that my laptop does not consume 100W.

If I wanted (or were able) to charge this battery in one minute, it would require 468 amps at 7.4V, or 28.86A at 120V. Charge it in two minutes (ignoring all system losses and heat issues) and you've solved the 120V issue. You're still trying to push 234A at 7.4V, though, which would be a problem. At 10 minutes charge time, especially if you were able to integrate the charger with the battery pack, I can see how it might be feasible.

Ah... but, here's the catch:

[Capt'n Hector (650760)]

These batteries also drain 80% in one minute!

Re:Ah... but, here's the catch:

[yincrash (854885)]

Actually that would be a very usefull ability if in fact it could discharge 80% of its capacity in a minute, for that would lead to a awesome power-density.

ah yes. we call them capicitors. what a crazy hitech world this is!

Re:So how much heat do these give off?

[Total_Wimp (564548)]

... and how much power will they require to charge? People are forgetting something. If you expect steady, large power over a large discharge period then you'll need huge power if your charg period is a small fraction of the discharge period.

It makes me question the scaling the article implied for hybrid cars. The "one minute" charge timeframe is very much depending on having a power source capable of delivering that much energy to the battery. Hybrid batteries are many times the size of standard car batteries. That's a lot of power to deliver in a minute.

TW

Re:So how much heat do these give off?

[Viceice (462967)]

You're not getting it. Just because the battery is capable of absorbing 80% of it's total capacity in a minute doesnit mean it must.

The real benefit here is from having a battery that is very efficient at absorbing energy in a situation where energy comes inconsistantly in intermittent intervels.

See, hybried cars charge the car battries when

1) The gas engine is running at such a situation where part of the power is used to run the car and part of it to charge it.

2) When the car is breaking.

So, when both situations occur isn'ty all that predictable and depends on the drivers driving style, meaning that the battery cannot get it's charge in a slow and steady stream but in occasional big gulps.

The problem with the big gulp today is that if the gulp is big enough and the battery can't take it, energy is going to waste. So this new battery solves that problem by giving the battery the ability to drink up energy faster then the car can generate it.

And if the reverse is true and the battery can discharge as fast, imagine what it can do for acceleration.

It is my hope

[eobanb (823187)]

...that this breathes new life into electric vehicles. The real problem with them right now is that it takes hours to recharge, whereas an internal combustion vehicle can just tank up at a service station in a minute or two. If this could work with electric vehicles as well, the scene could TOTALLY change. Imagine plugging in your car at the BP station for a minute or two, and being off on your merry way. The same goes for the insignificant capacity loss over time. Cells for electric vehicles are currently REALLY expensive, and heavy. Lithium ion cells are much lighter, and you could keep them for the life of the car.

Re:It is my hope

[cartman (18204)]

The problem wasn't that it takes hours to recharge. The problem was energy density: electric cars used conventional lead-acid or NiCAD batteries which were terribly heavy, relative to the amount of energy they stored. This greatly reduced vehicle range, because so much energy was expended carrying the heavy batteries. Adding batteries helped little, because that increased the weight of the batteries still further.

An example of these problems was the GM EV1, which had a range of ~40 miles in an underpowered subcompact. The problem was energy density: the EV1 devoted ~90% of its energy to carrying its own batteries.

Car manufacturers (like GM) considered using Lithium-Ion batteries, but were deterred by two facts: LiIon batteries are very expensive, and they need to be replaced every few years because they lose the ability to hold a charge. Replacing expensive batteries every 2 years or so made the vehicle costs skyrocket.

A LiIon battery that can be recharged many thousands of times, and that can be recharged in a few minutes, solves all of these problems. An EV can be built with a range >100 miles and an acceptable cost. Even long distances could be tolerated if you don't mind stopping every 100 miles or so for a brief recharge.

This potentially wouldn't even require a hybrid. Straight electric seems achievable.

Re:It is my hope

[Deliveranc3 (629997)]

Bugger that... plop the damn things down in front of traffic lights... long left turn boom full power!.

Auto credit card payment... Have it stick up to the bottom of your car.

Hybrid car charging is going to be exciting

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

Let's say you want to charge a 48V 500AH battery from 50% charged in 5 minutes.... That's going to want approx 3000A * 48V = 144kW of juice. At, say, 70% mechanical to electrical efficiency that's 206kW == 275 horse power.... and still leave some for the air conditioner and turning the wheels. Hmmm.

Maybe this technology will allow the battery size to be reduced in hybrids. That would definitely cut some cost out of hybrids and make them more pocket friendly.

This is cool because it helps efficiency

[Beryllium Sphere(tm) (193358)]

Lightly touch the brakes in a Prius, and the drive motor spins backwards as a generator, putting drag on the wheels and transferring the energy to the battery.

Stomp hard on the brakes in a Prius, and the battery can't absorb current fast enough to deal with the power surge. Mechanical brakes come into play. Energy that could have been recycled turns into heat in the mechanical brakes.

A super-fast charging battery could eliminate any need for mechanical brakes except as safety backups.

Re:This is cool because it helps efficiency

[Hal9000_sn3 (707590)]

900 amperes may seem like a lot, but I have seen electrical systems in aircraft designed (with safety margins) for 1500 A, and have also seen ground equipment peg an ammeter past the 2500 A mark. Starter/generators in larger, general aviation, aircraft typically draw 750 A at room temperature with cooled down engine, to get the engines up to speed. More current when cold, and at altitude they have to be able to spin an engine that could easily be at ambient temperatures around -40 degrees.

Large bus bars, and multiple 00 or 000 guage wires can easily handle that much current with high temperature insulation. The common tables of ampacity for stationary use are very conservative, and you must take into account the assumptions of those tables.

Then, my understanding is that most hybrid and electrical cars use more like 250-400 volt battery systems, so current handling would only need to be in the 225 to 360 ampere range.

Probably you would want actually to stop from 60MPH in about 3.5 seconds, and also you would not likely need to dissipate all the energy as generated electricity. In any case the engineering is not as difficult as it might seem, and with good enough bumpers and airbags, who needs brakes anyway?

Mine's better

[KFK - Wildcat (512842)]

it's a beautiful shade of blue

Heh, mine's better; it's painted with a super intelligent shade of blue.

Smaller Devices will benefit regardless

[Artifakt (700173)]

The best part of this is the batteries are being developed for cars. Compare this with the various high tech alloys and such that end up being available first in luxury items such as golf clubs or tennis racquets but not making it out to more fundamental products for another generation, or more. If this really starts showing up in 2006 models, it should slow the increase in gas prices within a few years, maybe a great deal if sales are good.
For Americans, would you rather have these batteries make it more quickly to your MP3 players and laptops, or have 2010 gas prices only rise to say $4.50 instead of $5.75 a gallon?
(And for most Europeans figure somewhere around EU 8 or 9 instead of EU 12, even if the Euro rises against the Dollar, as most of your governments have already agreed to discout hybred fuel costs in various ways, but a lot of the cost will still be taxes).
Indirect savings, i.e. from trucked goods costs and smaller winter spikes in heating oil prices would add substantially to that.
$1.25 a gallon difference (or likely more) will pay for lots of older model batteries for all your smaller appliances, and then some.

Re:one minute discharge

[ciroknight (601098)]

If you read the article, you'd see that the battery looses 1% of life after 1000 charge cycles. So you can see they already last quite a bit longer than typical Li-Ion batteries.

When can I expect one of these beasts in my iPod!!??

Re:one minute discharge

[dougmc (70836)]

But this ignores loss in capacity that may occur to do other factors, primarily exposure to heat.

To be more precise, Li-ion and Li-poly batteries lost most of their capacity in about two years, no matter how much use they get. (This assumes that they're not abused, of course. Abuse ruins them much faster.)

NiCd and NiMH cells, on the other hand, last longer, especially if not being charged and discharged a lot.

Re:chewbacca's flux capacitor

[smithmc (451373)]

thats roughly 445 horse-power-hours = 336 kilowatt hours or 1.21 gigajoules. if you push in this much energy in say ten minutes that requires a 2 megawatt power source.

And if you could push that much energy in one second, it'd be 1.21 gigawatts!!

Re:chewbacca's flux capacitor

[gnuman99 (746007)]

Drive train? What? Electic cars have motors in the wheels. Well, at least true electric cars. The motors and bearings are sealed. The maintenance is virtually nothing.

Electric motors bring true 4x4 power to cars. Don't know how that can be done? Look here about Variable Speed Drives http://www.psnh.com/Business/SmallBusiness/Motor.a sp [psnh.com]

Now about recharging, well, true, it will be hell of a lot of current on the battery cells. But that does NOT mean a lot of current in the input. If you want to recharge a 100Ah 24V battery, that's about 24*100=2.4kWh and recharge in 1 minute, you need to provide

• 6000A @ 24V
• 1200A @ 120V
• 300A @ 480V
• 30A @ 5kV

ASIDE: Motor effiency is >>95%, not some 70% crap. Even if you have have physical gears, you get >90% efficiency for the entire drive train. http://www.tech-m4.com/eng/tm4transport/moto_centr almotor/ [tech-m4.com]

The answer is high voltage input and it can be done. Especially in the US/Canada where power is distributed at high votage (ie. no need to worry about melting transmission lines).

Anyway, the battery cannot be recharged this way because the wires feeding the battery would melt, although more research in superconductors could fix this problem.

Re:Perpetual motion machine

[by Anonymous Coward]

Hey - go easy. It's his first day at the patent office.