14 DAY TRIAL // It's a deal then. Matsushita Battery Industrial (MBI), a division of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., said Monday that they are planning to produce a lithium-ion battery that incorporates some new technology implemented in order to ensure safety. The new batteries, according to the company, will never overheat or explode. While that seems rather hard to believe at the moment especially because of the "Sony incident", the future batteries seem to be working rather well. And yes, not a single one has exploded until now.
MBI has succeeded in improving the safety by introducing a heat resistance layer (HRL) that consists of an insulating metal oxide on the surface of the electrodes. Lithium-ion batteries come with a thin polyolefin separator that is placed to insulate the cathode from the anode. When the separator is pierced by an electrically conductive material, the battery can short-circuit and in some case, burn down. The new battery uses a special separating layer that is harder to pierce and has a higher resistance to heat. So even if it is pierced, the battery won't overheat.
MBI has also taken some measures to eliminate all the "impure" materials that can come in contact with the manufacturing of LiIon cells. In order to do that, they have produced a clean and electrical-impurities free environment in the new factories. The company has started to ship first 2.9Ah batteries that will mainly be used for notebook PCs in April this year and is said to be ready to start mass shipping. We hope that this initiative will be adopted as soon as possible by the other battery makers (Sony included!).