Battery Now Charges in Three Minutes Flat

A lithium-ion battery unveiled in New Scientist in April can recharge 80% of its power in just one minute, and can recharge fully in three minutes. It also keeps more than 99% of its original capacity even after 1000 test cycles of discharging and recharging.

The battery, from Toshiba, comes on the heels of another Li-ion battery from Altair Technologies of Reno, Nevada, that recharges in six minutes. Toshiba’s breakthrough was achieved by coating the non-carbon negative electrode with nanoparticles. It has not revealed all the details, but its approach appears similar to Altair’s in the use of tiny particles, which provide a surface area great enough to absorb and store vast amounts of lithium ions.

Toshiba also has a new electrolyte solution, which when the battery is recharging allows large numbers of the metal ions to move rapidly from the positive to the negative electrode. The lithium ions are absorbed by the nanoparticles without causing the electrode to deteriorate.

The Toshiba prototype is the size of a cellphone battery and weighs 16gm. It has a capacity of 600mAh and an energy density of 150 to 250Wh/l, comparable to that found in Li-ion car batteries.

Toshiba says it will commercialize a larger form of its battery next year for industrial and automotive uses, such as hybrid cars and batteries for emergency power supplies in plants and hospitals. Later it will target mobile digital products such as phones.