Slashdot Mirror
Li-Ion With 300% More Power, Minutes to Recharge
Battery Nut writes "Altair Nanotechnologies claims to have found a way to reduce Li-Ion recharge time to minutes, as well as increase battery power by 300%, according to this press release.
Seems they have received some good feedback by certain experts about thier work: "Two eminent experts in battery technology, Dr. K. M. Abraham and Dr. Vassilis G. Keramidas, have expressed strong support for Altair's work. "
So is it a new revolution in battery technology, or hopeful hype? Stay tuned, their quarterly conference call is Thursday Feb 24th at 11AM." Anyone else think snake oil?
When did Slashdot start posting messages from stock pumpers?
I don't belive that the claim is that thier new batteries have three times the capacity of a current Li-ion battery. They are claiming three times the power, which I read as meaning that the peak discharge power is three times greater.
This is a lot more reasonable, from my understanding of Li-ion batteries. The theoretical energy capacity isn't three times current batteries, IIRC, so trippling that is unreasonable. But three times the discharge rate is not impossible, and brings them into the range of NiMH batteries, maybe even Lead-Acid. Coupled with the superior energy density of Li-ion, that's very very nice.
This matches well with the claim of faster charging - the limiting factors for charging and dischargeing are related in batteries.
So, your sums become 4Ah in 5 minutes, or a much more reasonable 48 amps. A lot, yes, but not beyond what's currently done with medium current applications.
Reading the press relase as I did above imedialty makes is much more reasonable, although I'd love to get more details. There's a lot hingeing on the word 'power', depending whether you read it in a technical or common definition, so much so that I wouldn't want to depend on it.
I'll just expect this battery to come with an internal fuse, instead.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"