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Huawei Battery Upgrade Means Dramatically Faster Charging For Mobile Devices
Computerworld reports a welcome development for everyone with battery powered portable electronics, which might just have applications further afield, too (like electric cars): Huawei has developed a battery based on conventional lithium-ion chemistry but tweaked with the addition of graphite atoms bonded to the anode. From the article: That change means faster charging but not at the expense of usage life or a sacrifice in the amount of energy that can be stored in each battery, [the company] said.
It was developed by Huawei research and development subsidiary Watt Lab and the company showed off two prototypes in videos posted online.
One of the two batteries has a capacity of 3,000mAh (milliampere hours) -- about equivalent to the batteries in modern smartphones -- and can be charged to 48 percent of capacity in five minutes. The second has a much smaller capacity of 600mAh but reaches 68 percent of capacity in just two minutes.
Even thought it could take some more time to complete the charge from 49 to 100%, what's really great is when your smartphone is agonizing at 1~2%, you just need to plug it somewhere in a coffee shop, work, ... to get to 50% charge in just 5 minutes, which is usually - depending on what phone you have - enough until the evening to then charge it fully.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Have you been asleep? Around 1990, a rechargable AA battery had 500 mAh capacity, took 14 hours to charge and had memory effect issues (NiCd, remember?). These days AA means 2500 mAh NiMH rechargable in under 1 hour. Li-ion is even better but generally not available in AA (cell chemistry means a much higher voltage per cell).
So that's 2 entirely new battery chemistries and a 5-fold increase in capacity.
Also, you may not want to read about early research, but I do. If you want nothing but product announcements, go read manufacturer press releases instead of coming to Slashdot.