Electronics thirst for more juice

Welcome to a laptop battery specialist
of the Toshiba Laptop Battery   First post by: www.batterystores.ca

For most of us, a dead battery in our cellphone or digital camera is an annoyance. For surgical-tools salesman Jason Paul, it can cost him big money.

Paul counts on his cellphone to check his stocks and send e-mail. He logs more than 3,000 minutes a month in calls to his clients. He also uses his phone to show doctors video clips of how his products perform in the operating room.

"When I'm using it like this, which is most days, I maybe get two or three hours out of the batteries," says Paul, who works for Fremont, Calif.-based Rita Medical Systems.

"If it goes out and some doctor is trying to get a hold of me and can't, then they get angry. You're only one bad case away from losing a customer."

Paul, 29, is among a growing number of consumers becoming ever more dependent on their energy-hungry gadgets.

But cellphones, laptops, digital music players and portable video-game consoles tend to gobble up more power with every additional feature.

Battery makers are racing to keep up, finding new ways to pack more power into smaller and smaller spaces.

Technical challenges

The technical challenges are daunting. Most people have little understanding of the complex and volatile chemistry that occurs in their batteries each time they videotape the kids at soccer practice or listen to their iPod, says Brian Barnett, managing director of research and development firm Tiax.

"Can you imagine a chemical plant that has to operate in a closed condition and send energy forward and backward 500 times?" Barnett said.

"And you can't send anybody in to do maintenance. People who operate chemical plants laugh, but that's what we do with a rechargeable cell."

Much of the research is centered on improving the lithium ion battery such as Toshiba Satellite A70 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A75 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 8000 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 8100 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 9000 Battery, Toshiba Tecra 9100 Battery, Toshiba Satellite 1900 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A60-662 Battery, Toshiba Satellite A65 Battery, Toshiba Satellite 2100 Battery, which has revolutionized the electronics industry since it was widely adopted in the mid-1990s.

Found in most mobile electronics gear, lithium ion batteries are energy dense, smaller and lighter than nickel-based batteries, but are often more expensive.

They work by mixing lithium cobaltate at the positive terminal and graphite at the negative. The two materials produce a lot of energy when they react with each other.

Some of the scientists involved believe lithium ion has maxed out as a power source. And some companies are already coming up with new materials to replace cobaltate and graphite.

Sony and Matsushita Electric Industrial, which makes Panasonic brand products, each announced earlier this year that they had developed longer-lasting lithium ion batteries by tweaking the chemical equation.

Both companies say their methods can boost the life of a battery by up to 30 percent, claims some analysts question.

Sony says it replaced graphite with a mixture of tin, cobalt and carbon for its "hybrid" battery, which is being rolled out exclusively in the company's new DVD Handycam camcorders.

Mike Kahn, a Sony senior product manager, said the new materials stuff more ions into a cell, extending the life of the battery by 20 percent in normal conditions.

The hybrid outperforms standard batteries in cold weather by 30 percent and recharges faster, he says.

Kahn declined to say when Sony's innovation would be brought to cellphones, laptops or other products.

Panasonic says it's working together with Intel to develop an "all-day battery," increasing the capacity by swapping cobaltate for another material the company won't disclose.

The new material allows the batteries to be discharged down to a lower voltage, enabling users to get more runtime from their devices.

Designed to power laptops, cellphones and other mobile electronics, Panasonic's first-generation battery is scheduled to hit store shelves in April, says Kurt Kelty, director of the Panasonic Energy Solutions Lab.