I used to think that I was good at loading stuff. My phone, for example, almost never dies because I charge it wirelessly overnight, then, if it operates low in the afternoon, I explode it with juice of a quick charger. But the maximum capacity of my battery recently fell into the 80%beach, and I know that it will only be a matter of time before having to get a new battery – or a new phone if I feel gullible.
The lithium-ion batteries that feed our phones, laptop computers and even our cars are intrinsically imperfect and intended to deteriorate over time. Almost everything we do that it happens faster. This wireless charger that I use during the night creates an excess heat, which accelerates the degradation of the battery. Ditto for fast load.
This means that loading your phone properly is practically impossible.
While some Advice and tips can speed up the process and extend the life of your phoneYou can’t do anything on the limits of lithium-ion batteries in your devices. They all end up stopping holding a charge, which means that they constantly need to replace. Lithium-ion batteries, especially those cheap, can also Warning without warning.
However, there is a new hope for a breakthrough in battery technology.
A Boston -based startup called Pure Lithium recently announced a Praced with its metal lithium batteries. While the lithium-ion batteries of your phone start to degrade considerably after a few hundred load and discharge cycles, these metal lithium batteries, which use pure lithium rather than lithium compound, can last more than 2 000 cycles without degradation of significant damage, a continuous test shows. In addition, lithium metal batteries can store twice as much energy and weigh half that conventional lithium-ion batteries. The co -founder and CEO of pure lithium Emilie Bodine calls this combination of characteristics “the saint grail of energy storage”.
“We must have a change of steps because there have been many inventions in the battery space in the past 20 years,” said Bodine. “(But) you cannot feel it in your phone or device.”
That said, you can’t buy an iPhone with a lithium metal battery. Metal lithium batteries, as well as the rest of the battery technologies that are held to replace the lithium-ion, are still in development.
And so even if the lithium-ion batteries are imperfect, they will continue to be omnipresent for decades. The supply chain necessary to build lithium-ion batteries, in particular EV batteries, strongly depends on ChinaBut it can also evolve in a way that experimental battery technology cannot. Global demand for lithium-ion has reached 700 gigawatt hours in 2022 And, largely thanks to electric vehicles, demand should increase by 30% per year until it reaches 4,300 Gigawatt in 2030, according to McKinsey. To put this in context, 4,300 kilowatt hours is enough to supply more than 400,000 houses for a year or almost equivalent to the annual production of the Hoover dam.
Lithium-ion batteries are essential to the transition of renewable energies and because they are gradually improving. You may be bad to load your phone, for example, and yet your phone will not explode or will never stop working immediately. You can also Drive an EV about 300 miles before having to charge it. However, the ability to grasp even more energy in our batteries would be revolutionary.
“If we had another generation of battery technology that gave you three to five others, ideally 10 times more energy density,” said Stuart LipoffAn IEEE scholarship holder. “This could allow a whole new generation of devices.”
This type of technological revolution could not only indicate that the battery of your phone lasts days. This could lead to a device that completely replaces your phone, as Ultra light augmented reality glasses It never needs to load. And the new revolutionary batteries will not only give us more durable EV batteries. We could have battery plansTrains and container ships.
In the meantime, however, we are all stuck with lithium -ion batteries and their many faults – but there are ways to manage them.
Lithium-ion Battery Technology dates back to 1972, when Mr. Stanley Whittingham I first developed it in Exxonof all places. Exxon predicted that oil production would eventually decrease and that its researchers were looking for alternative energy sources. The company itself showed Whittingham design at the 1977 Chicago Auto ShowDecades before lithium-ion batteries helped make electric vehicles.
These batteries have upset the consumption technology industry, first appearing in A Sony Handycam modelBefore finding their way in electric vehicles. The three scientists – Whittingham, Akira Yoshino and John Goodenough – Shared the Nobel Prize in chemistry 2019 For their contributions to the development of lithium-ion technology.
How the lithium-ion batteries work
The batteries consist of three essential ingredients: an anode, a cathode and an electrolyte. (You will generally see the anode labeled with a sign + and the Cathode A – Sign.)
When the battery is used, a series of chemical reactions pushes the anode electrons, through the electrolyte and in the cathode. When the chemical energy between the two poles hits a balance, the reaction stops and the battery is dead, until you recharge it. The addition of an reverse electric current the reaction, returning the electrons to the anode and the battery is loaded again.
Lithium-ion batteries use graphite as anode and a lithium compound as a cathode, usually a lithium cobalt oxide. (China is the largest producer in the world graphiteand the Democratic Republic of Congo is the largest product cobaltwhich presents potential supply chain problems for the United States.)
The material used for cathode also determines the energy density of a battery, which is why lithium gets all the credit. There are other battery chemicals, but lithium is widely considered Like the best material for a cathodepartly because of its high energy density.
It was after Yoshino and Goodenough pushed lithium-ion battery technology in the 1980s that it was marketed. Sony actually helped popularize the term “lithium-ion” When he released the first commercial lithium-ion battery in 1991.
“Lithium-ion batteries are really great, but they are not perfect,” said Matthew McDowellGeorgia Tech Advanced Battery Center co -director. “They will not go anywhere soon.”
The advantages and disadvantages of lithium-ion batteries were clear from the start. They could wrap a large amount of energy in a small light set, which makes them ideal for portable consumption gadgets, such as camcorders and smartphones, as well as electric vehicles.
But although they can technically operate for years, lithium-ion batteries cannot be loaded and released as so many times before the Inside materials degrade to the point that they stop working. This is still true today, which is why, at some point, tiny devices like Airpods just have to be thrown away Because their batteries no longer hold a load and cannot be replaced.
“Lithium-ion batteries will no longer improve,” said Bodine. “They just can’t. They have a theoretical energy density that they can achieve, and you simply cannot enlarge it. This is the problem.
The beauty of battery management
The battery life improves however. The latest iPhone lasts longer than last year’s iPhone on a single loadBut it is not necessarily due to a breakthrough in lithium-ion battery technology. The software that manages the way the battery of a device changes and discharges is just as important as the chemistry of the battery itself today.
This is why there are so much advice and stuff to load your phone. Done correctly, you can bypass the gaps in your battery and not only maintain a load longer, but also extend the whole life of the battery.
To optimize battery life and lifespan, you ideally keep your phone between 20 and 80% in a room at around 65 degrees at any time. If the battery is too empty or too full, too hot or too cold, It degrades faster. And when you load it, you should not do too much with an overly powerful adapter, as it can heat the battery and, once again, make it degrade. (The power of a charger is measured in watts, with higher wings corresponding to a faster load.)
It is practically impossible to fulfill all these conditions and live a normal life. In addition, degradation is inevitable with lithium-ion batteries, so even if you do everything correctly, you finally fight a lost battle.
The manufacturers of devices know too well the gaps in lithium-ion batteries, which is why they constantly improve the battery management software. In fact, you don’t have to worry too much that your battery is too full, because it The software will slow down the loadAlso known as “rotation load”, as the battery is close to 100%. It is also difficult to completely drain your battery, as the device stops when there are still a few percentage points. These battery management features also protect the health of your battery When you use a quick charger.
All this is added to good and bad news.
The good news is, despite the many myths surrounding appropriate load techniquesYour phone, laptop and even EV are designed to compensate for gaps in lithium-ion battery technology. You may be bad to load your phone these days and your phone will take care of itself. If you are really worried about the health of your battery, avoid the load or fast load overnight, and do not leave your phone cooking in the sun. But for the most part, you just have to accept that the lithium-ion battery of your phone will simply stop working after a few hundred cycles.
The bad news is that the change of stage of the battery technology which will bring us aircraft supplied by battery is in the years. For new battery technologies, breakthroughs such as the experience of pure lithium that I mentioned earlier are only a step on the long way to marketing. After all, it took 20 years in the invention of the first lithium-ion battery to its introduction into the Handycam. It’s long enough for the Handycam itself to become obsolete for a generation And then fashionable again With their children obsessed with nostalgia.
HAS borrow a quoteLithium-ion are not the batteries we deserve, but these are the batteries we need at the moment.
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