Korean geniuses invent lithium batteries with eight times the juice
By Samuel Axon 
posted November 13th 2008 7:28AM
posted November 13th 2008 7:28AM
Oh, what wondrous things come from the land of Korea -- dancing emotional robot humanoids, oxygen-emitting robot plants, and multiple 24-hour StarCraft channels. It's all good, and we dig robotics and televised gaming, but this latest invention could be our favorite if it pans out. Professor Cho Jae-Phil and his team at Hanyang University have replaced the graphite in lithium batteries with a certain kind of silicon, which we're told can store eight times the power. No word on what the batteries have actually been used for yet, but it stands to reason they could eventually make it to consumer electronics. Now you see why we're willing to say this might be better than 24-hour StarCraft. Say it with us: 48-hour StarCraft.
The japanese are like the Romulans and the Koreans are like the Klingons. The Klingons are always pissed off and hostile but at least they are straightforward and predictable. In that way, easy to deal with. The Japanese will smile and bow and suddenly your fleet is at the bottom of the bay in Hawaii on a sunday morning.
Ho hum. This is a silicon-based anode, which has higher capacity than carbon but has to expand almost 3x to provide that kind of capacity. And, it's just the anode, which takes up usually less than 50% of the total battery volume, so total cell capacity will be much lower than 8x. Everybody and his brother is working on silicon anodes. See the "groundbreaking" press release from Stanford a while back as an example. Also, they have not identified a suitable cathode to complement it, so they can certainly not claim to have a whole battery that is capable of 8x more energy. Every time one of these announcements comes out about a higher capacity anode or cathode, it gets misinterpreted by every blogger as the next great thing in batteries. There will not be a lithium-ion battery with 8x capacity increase, it simply can't be done. Optimistically, we could hope for 2x improvement some years out, but don't hold your breath. If you want something interesting, start looking at metal-air couples, that's where you can start to approach 10x improvements over existing Li-ion.
Word, son.
Damn.
Not only did he bring it, he brought, laid it on the table and rubbed your face in it.
Engadget just got served!
Thank you, I used to build lithium power cells for JPL, your remarks are accurate.
So, when you say Korea...you're talking about the part the US invaded, right? Cuz a US invasion is always a bad thing. I'm sure I read that somewhere. I want to apologize to all those people for not respecting the sovereignty of their country, so they can be all un-occupied and un-invaded. Like North Korea.
Liberation of a country produces superior technological competition. Let that be a lesson to us! Soon, Iraq will be able to produce things like this, and then where will we be? Even further behind!
we've got macdonalds, and the iphone
As long as they don't charge the x8 price of the regular batteries everything should be fine.
Old news?
http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/19/stanfords-nanowire-battery-leapfrogs-li-ion/
There has been lots of talking about this, but launch a working product and I'll believe it.
Are you sure that this can be used in laptops? A lithium battery and a lithium-ion battery aren't the same thing, from what I gather these batteries will not be rechargeable, and therefore will not be used in laptops, more likely they'll be used in toys etc.
It's OVER .... over 8000 ... : (
interpret as you'd like
if it were 8x the power it woudl be of course.. 800 ..% nice try folks!
I totatly agree, that's why i use my pic for my avatar as well.
Hmm, me thinks i should have hit the reply button on a certian post. Soooo in reference see earlier comment about Dooshy McDoosherson...
The Wireless subscriber you are trying to reach is currently not thinking properly.
Message 81.
You guy have inspired me to upload my picture as well.
2 words... light sabre. Woohoo!!!
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/4237756.html
(dec 2007)
A silicon anode, by comparison, can hold a much greater charge—4.4 lithium ions per single silicon atom. But because silicon swells to four times its volume when charged, using it in a battery causes the anode to break apart, rendering standard silicon useless for power. The breakthrough is in the discovery that, while 100-nanometer-wide silicon nanowires expand, they do not break.
in the source article it clearealy states that they improved the life of the battery with 90%. This is not even close to 8x , in fact it is short of 2x. But anyway, if it's true this is amazing.
Seven..minute...abs.
Fake. Especially given the fact that the new battery technology 'invented' by Koreans.
"Cho says commercial production of the new, high-capacity batteries could begin as soon as four years."
http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/11/11/team.doubles.battery.life/
4 years?
Uh...current enthusiasm quashed.