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AAAAAAAAA-size Li-Ion Cells

Posted by timothy on from the batteries-make-the-world-go-round dept.

Jasin Natael writes "Thought Li-Ion batteries were all the same? Think again. Several universities, under a grant from the US Office of Naval Research, are miniaturizing the anodes and cathodes of Li-Ion batteries to nanoscale, hoping to make more efficient, smaller cells that last longer."

2 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Heat production? by autopr0n · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have a nokia 8000 series phone (i forget the exact model, it's not printed anywhere, oddly)

    It's a few years, and pretty 'primitive', but when I'm on the phone that thing get's hot. Not unbearably so, although it does almost get uncomfortable to hold up to my ear.

    If these add-ons need so much more power then current cell phone batteries, then they would need to put out a lot more heat too. After all, 1 watt of power used equals about 1 watt of heat produced (not counting things like lights, or EM radiation).

    IMO those things would be better served by smaller, cpus with more computational power per unit of actual power.

    Of course longer battery life would be helpful to :P

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    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  2. There's a problem with this approach by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You can't scale things down like this. Rules change as you get smaller. Cells, as in human cells, don't have little batteries with discrete anodes and cathodes floating around. The way cells use energy is fundamentally different from a battery. People will have to shift their point of view away from making 'big things small', and start thinking in different ways. It is possible to miniaturize vacuum tubes, for example, but to get really small circuits there had to be a (sigh.. marketroid speak, but it works well) paradigm shift. I think the same thing will happen with energy storage.

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    Mostly random stuff.