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."

Comments

Nice but...

[klatty]

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

Different recharging techniques.

[sanityspeech]

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.

I'm a beta tester...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Fantastic for travelers

[mytest23]

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.

Re:sigh heard round the world

[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?

This is cool because it helps efficiency

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

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]

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]

it's a beautiful shade of blue

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

There go the circuit breakers

[JoeBuck]

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]

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.

Re:Perpetual motion machine

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:chewbacca's flux capacitor

[smithmc]

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

[yincrash]

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!