The Transition to Lithium Ion Batteries
Nickel cadmium batteries used to be the preferred battery up until a few years ago. Recently, lithium ion batteries have replaced them as the standard and have now become the only available batteries you’ll find for laptops. If you want to find out more about the current state of laptop batteries, then keep reading.
The reason lithium ion batteries have become the new standard is due to the fact that they hold their charge better, they maintain their rechargeability better, and they have a longer battery life in general as opposed to nickel cadmium batteries. Originally, the early lithium-based batteries used metallic lithium for the anode. The problem with this, however, is that it was pretty unstable.
Lithium is extremely electropositive, and although will maintain a long life, is essentially a safety problem. For example, if you put lithium in water, it will violently ignite and spew explosive hydrogen gas. The original lithium batteries were much more efficient than the nickel cadmium ones, but they couldn’t be sold commercially because they had the potential to explode. Eventually the introduction of batteries that used more stable lithium compounds would solve the problem. These new safer batteries used carbon for the anodes rather than metallic lithium.
Lithium ion batteries were first commercially released by Sony in 1991, and since then have undergone constant improvements to their safety. Out of all these improvements, however, there has been little progress when it comes to
battery life.
The biggest improvement was actually announced in 2008 by Argonne National Laboratory when they claimed to have a lithium ion battery with 30 percent long life than normal. Even though this is quite significant, the battery has not been put on the market yet.
The longest-lasting battery to date claims a maximum life of 12 hours. However, this was judged using a system in which it runs at extremely low capacity [to the point where a laptop could hardly function]. Lithium ion batteries may have
generally come pretty far, but the battery life itself has only had minor improvements. [The 12-hour claim is effectively useless considering that no laptop being used under standard/normal working conditions would be able to last that long].
The minor improvements in lithium ion battery life are basically due to the use of the microprocessors in the battery that use less energy rather than improvement of the battery itself.
There you go – just a little history on the transition from nickel cadmium batteries to lithium ion batteries. Recently there have been some developments that suggest you may be able to start leaving your charger at home from now on. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for that.
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