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Toshiba Battery Charges In 10 Minutes

Posted by samzenpus on from the watch-the-lights-dim dept.

Slatterz writes "Toshiba has unveiled a battery prototype that offers a 90 percent charge capacity in just 10 minutes. The Super Charge Ion Battery (SCIB) is capable of handling 5,000 to 6,000 recharge cycles, compared to the typical 500 offered by standard lithium-ion batteries. The new battery is composed of a durable material that offers a high level of thermal stability and prevents overheating."

2 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. Re:a better link by lysergic.acid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    SCiB batteries can endure 5,000 to 6,000 recharge cycles, compared to around 500 cycles for standard lithium-ion batteries, according to a Toshiba executive manning the company's booth at the Ceatec exhibition in Chiba, Japan. At the show, Toshiba showed a prototype SCiB battery installed in a Dynabook laptop. The laptop was matched

    only 500 cycles, really? that seems a little low. do they mean that after 500 charges the battery begins to decrease in capacity, or that the battery will start to fail completely after 500 charges? because that seems really really low to me.

    i mean, most rechargeable batteries today are Li-ion batteries, right? i just wanna know how many recharges i have left on my PSP.

    does it help if you make sure to plug the battery back into the charger before it's out of charge? what can you do or not do to help preserve the capacity and life-span of a li-ion battery?

  2. Re:Why 90% by Spoke · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you think of a battery as a bucket where the battery charge is indicated by the amount of water in the bucket.

    Now imagine that you are trying to fill that bucket as fast as possible, which means using a firehose, and that spilling any water means damaging the bucket.

    Getting the bucket close to full without making a mess is a lot easier than getting it 100% full which means you need to slow the fill down to trickle to make sure you don't over flow or splash water everywhere.

    Charging the last 10% of battery capacity is difficult because the battery does not readily accept a charge as it's nearly full. This means to get the last 10% of capacity you need to slow down the charge rate, which means that in this case, it may only take 10 minutes to get to 90% full, but it may take another 30-60 minutes to charge up that last 10% without damaging the battery.