New battery would be safer, last longer that Lithium Ion
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
August 04, 2005
Researchers at NEC have developed a new type of rechargeable battery that is based on organic compounds and could be useful in a wide range of IT-related applications, they said Thursday.
The Organic Radical Battery, or ORB, is based on a similar cell structure to a Lithium Ion battery, of the type commonly found in devices such as notebook computers and cell phones, but with one significant difference: instead of using poisonous ingredients like lithium and cobalt it uses an organic compound called PTMA.
The change not only makes the battery more environmentally friendly but also delivers some properties that could make it better suited to certain applications than existing batteries, said Masaharu Satoh, principal researcher and NEC's (Profile, Products, Articles) energy device technology group in Tsukuba, Japan.
Chief among these is a high power density, which indicates how much power can be supplied for its size. An ORB can deliver much more power than a Lithium Ion battery of the same size. However the energy density, which relates to how long the power can be supplied, is lower than Lithium Ion. This combination points towards applications where a large amount of power is needed for a short time, said Satoh.
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http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/08/04/HNorganicbattery_1.html?source=NLC-TB2005-08-05