Cell phone consumers and laptop consumers are well aware of ordinary Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. The typical lithium-ion battery cell composes of 2 parts: the carbon made anode and the metal-oxide cathode. Charging the battery causes lithium-ions to flow from the cathode to the anode. An electronic circuit is used to balance the charge with the flood of electrons. Using the battery causes the lithium ions to reverse from the anode to the cathode. This has been the essential setup for batteries during the last few years.
The energy capacity of these batteries is restricted to the sum of lithium-ions that can be kept at the anode. Because this is currently made of carbon, these batteries have basically reached their highest capacity. Higher capacities are always sought, and at present nanowires emerge to be the most promising.
Silicon has been found to soak up up to ten times more energy than carbon. Yi Cui, an assistant professor, is one of the researchers in this thrilling field. When charged with power, silicon sadly increases dramatically in size. When the battery is used, the continuous enlarging and shrinking eventually causes the silicon layers to deteriorate. Yi Cui and his team used nanotechnology to overcome this predicament. The solution was to create very thin silicon nanowires and use that as the battery’s anode.The reason why the work is still unknown, but the nanowires still enlarge and shrink, but they do not break.
The high price of manufacturing these ultra-thin wires (1000 times thinner than a human hair) is still a primary stumble block. Over time this ought to become cheaper. While capacities of 10 times that of usual Li-ion batteries are on the horizon, the best so far, was producing a battery that provides about 4 times more energy. This proves the possibilities for nanowire batteries.
Silicon has shown that alternate options for the metal-oxide are also required. The potential of silicon are diminished by the shortcomings of the metal-oxide cathode.
Electronic devices like notebooks and mobile phones will probably profit the most from the arrival of nanowire batteries. Nanowire batteries also offer huge possibilities in other fields, in particular the research of electric motorcars
Although patents have already been filed, we will probably only see these advancements in better battery life by 2012. At least better batteries are an actuality for the near future. I get really excited simply thinking about the prospect of running a laptop for two days from just one charge, but there is still a lot of work that must be done.
Author Resource:-
SJP Babrevian has been writing online articles for more than 3 years. He writes on various subjects. He also likes building small information websites on different subjects. Come visit his latest websites. The first is about yoga, and especially yoga mats and can be found at http://www.cottonyogamats.webatu.com/. His second latest website is about the little known money making opportunity in Tilapia Fish Farming, that can be found here,
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