14 DAY TRIAL // The most powerful batteries presently available are based on a Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) structure, lasting the longest, and having a maximum of ergonomics (the best storage energy/weight ratio), much superior to the Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries.
Unfortunately, the Li-Ion cells bear their disadvantages, such as permanence and the inability to rapidly discharge a large amount of energy, necessary, for instance, for the camera flashes.
Given all that, a superior type of battery is more and more needed. Altair Technologies might have come up with the solution, through its new Li-Ion cell type, with a considerably extended anode area.
Thus, the electron flow speed is much increased, and recharging the battery will be a matter of minutes. Also, discharging of large energy amounts will no longer be a problem.
The Li-Ion battery working mechanism consists in the ejection of the Lithium ions from the Lithium-Cobalt cathode, through an electrolyte solution, to the Carbon anode. The adjustment that Altair came up with implies the enlargement of the anode area, composed of Lithium-Titan nano-crystals. By changing the anode composition, the exchange surface is increased from 3 square meters per gram, as for the Carbon, to 100 square meters per gram. Thanks to this adjustment, the batteries will be able to generate increased energy amounts, and the devices served by them could perform new, harder tasks.
For instance, camera-phones could be equipped with powerful flashes, similar to those used now only by the classical cameras.
The new battery will also have other advantages, such as an increased number of recharging cycles. While presently, a Li-Ion battery stands up to 400 complete recharging cycles, the new generation of improved batteries will be able to last through as much as 20,000 cycles.