Batteries: Where do we go from here?

Portable electronics is an important market and is providing growing opportunities for various types of rechargeable batteries, micro fuel cells, and a wide variety of power management ICs. But as portable devices get increasingly smaller, and with more functions being added on to these devices, the question remains: how to increase power while reducing cell size. Real estate on portables is prime, and the need to devote minimal space to batteries is the order of the day.

DISCRETE SOLUTIONS
The zeal to develop discrete powering solutions could eventually do away with conventional metal hydride, nickel cadium or lithium, only to be replaced with a substance that may prove lethal if not handled or disposed of properly. In The Dodge Report: Batteries should not be too hot to handle, John Dodge postulated that, in future, one may have “the somewhat unsettling feeling that something akin to a small nuclear reaction will be routine in batteries.” I am inclined to agree with Dodge’s possibility given the seemingly unquenchable demand for more power in a world where “nano is everything.” I would even go so far as to add that somewhere in the near future a more powerful, albeit a more toxic and highly explosive content will be found in discrete powering solutions.

My prediction should not raise eyebrows in the light of recent battery recalls. Last year, for example, Dell recalled 4.1 million notebook batteries that could catch fire. Imagine such an unfortunate accident occurring on board an aircraft. Should legislation on battery technology and safety be more punitive? There will not be an answer anytime soon until the effects of efficiency regulation on external power supplies, currently being debated, are determined.

FAVORED BATTERY
But whatever the case may be, the lithium-ion battery is still the favored battery for consumer-electric portables. These batteries have now found use in automobiles including EVs (electric vehicles) and PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles). PHEVs differ from the more common HEVs (hybrid electric vehicles), such as the Toyota Prius, in that the engine in PHEVs acts only as a back up if the user exceeds the mileage range. The PHEV battery requires daily charging for its primary power. However, even here the problem of thermal-runaway problems inherent in lithium-ion batteries had to be addresses, safely. The solution to this problem, presented at this year’s Advanced Automotive Battery Conference in Long Beach, California, by JB Straubel, Tesla Motor’s chief technology officer, was to use many small, individually fused, 18650-form-factor lithium-ion cells – rather than one large, prismatic battery – to make a battery pack. Straubel argued that it would be easier to handle catastrophic failures with small individual cells that one large cell.

This kind of pre-emptive method could well be employed in the design and development of other types of fuel cells, especially in the light of recent discoveries of new, non-liquid materials that promise to double, or even triple, the capacity in lithium-ion batteries. So what’s next? A nuclear-type powered fuel cell for cellphones and cars? The kind of power these nano-type powering devices could possibly absolve the need for recharging. But what is in them could be an issue, and it will be an issue if not handled or disposed of properly.