Tech Shout!

A battery technology for notebooks that was much-talked about around nine years ago, may finally reach the masses. We are talking about Lithium polymer batteries for notebooks.

At present, lithium ions batteries are used by notebook manufacturers like Sony. In fact, Stan Glasgow, Sony Electronics President confirmed that lithium polymer batteries will soon replace the currently used lithium ion batteries.

A point to be noted is that there is a huge difference between lithium polymer batteries and the currently used lithium ion batteries.

Lithium polymer batteries use lithium as an active ingredient. Since lithium is a highly volatile material, the lithium in lithium polymer batteries are not packed into cells as in the case of lithium ion batteries. Instead, it is contained in a polymer gel. It is interesting to note that although these polymer gel batteries are not able to provide the same amount of energy density (capacity) as lithium ion batteries, it is a plus point to be considered.

Notebook and battery manufacturers such as Sony have pushed the energy density of lithium ion batteries. When this is done, an internal short occurs, and can set off a chain reaction and can give rise to a fire. It is common knowledge that Dell, Lenovo, Apple, Toshiba together with Sony have had to take back millions of lithium ion batteries in the past two years due to unexpected breakouts of fires.

At the same time, when polymer batteries are spoken about, it is known that they cannot provide the long battery life manufactures and consumers demand these days. In fact, Mitsubishi used lithium polymer batteries in its Pedion Notebook way back in 1997. This notebook was thinner than other designs of that time, but it cost nearly $6,000 and had a lot of mechanical problems.

In spite of all these historical problems, industrial designers are taken a liking to lithium polymer batteries because gel packs can be squeezed into the device’s empty spaces. Besides, Lithium polymer has improved with time, and some manufacturers are already using it in phones.

Sony Electronics President, Stan Glasgow commented on this and said that nothing new will be available in the next 12 to 18 months. That sounds like a long time to wait, but we will wait and see. After all, as an old quote goes, “All human wisdom is summed up in two words- wait and hope.”