In today’s society, portable electronic devices such as smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles are widely used, creating a demand on our energy resources. As more devices enter the market and the technology in these devices advances, energy requirements will increase and users demand longer battery life and more convenience, resulting in ever-increasing demands on batteries for portable electronic devices.
For several decades, the lithium-ion battery has been the standard energy storage solution for most portable electronic devices. While there are some inherent limitations to this battery type, engineers and scientists around the world are investigating new technologies for energy storage that would dramatically increase the amount of time that portable electronic devices could run without having to be recharged.
Recent discoveries in materials science, energy management systems, and electrochemistry will dramatically change how batteries of the future operate. There are several energy storage technologies currently in development, including solid-state batteries, sodium-ion batteries, silicon anodes, and quantum batteries that offer higher energy density and faster recharge times with longer lifetimes while being safer than traditional lithium-ion batteries. These advancements may revolutionize the way that portable electronic devices utilize and store energy in the next ten years.
Limitations of Lithium-Ion Batteries
Lithium-ion batteries have been the most popular energy storage method since the 1990s, supplying energy for billions of electronic devices around the world due to their high energy density, long cycle life, and decreasing production cost. Recently, as more advanced and power-hungry devices are introduced into the market, the limitations of lithium-ion batteries are becoming apparent.
Energy density is a significant factor limiting battery technology. Battery manufacturers need to increase the energy density of their batteries if they want to create devices that can run for days or a week on one charge. While lithium-ion chemistry has been improving, researchers are beginning to hit the theoretical limits of lithium-ion chemistry. In addition, lithium-ion batteries continue to degrade after being charged and recharged numerous times and have safety issues related to overheating and chemical instability.
These limitations have caused researchers to investigate alternate battery chemistries and to develop new structural features that will allow them to exceed the overall performance of lithium-ion batteries.
Solid-State Batteries Are A Large Improvement
What Is A Solid-State Battery?
Scientists believe solid-state batteries offer manufacturers a major technological advance over all existing forms of lithium-ion batteries. Rather than using a liquid electrolyte to transport ions between electrode surfaces as is typical of a conventional battery, solid-state devices utilize solid-state materials to transport ions between their electrodes. The use of solid-state materials creates a number of advantages over conventional lithium-ion batteries: they provide enhanced safety, have a greater energy density capacity, and have a faster recharging time.
Developments in the realm of batteries show continued improvements since the introduction of lithium-ion technology. Recent experimental solid state batteries have reached energy densities of nearly 400 watt-hours per kilogram, a level that is well above what many existing commercial lithium-ion batteries can achieve, in many instances by a factor of two. Dynamic performance characteristics also suggest that these batteries can charge significantly faster than lithium-ion batteries and will retain their performance characteristics over thousands of charges.
If these technologies succeed in being commercially viable, there is considerable potential to improve the way these batteries are utilized for consumer electronics. A smartphone with a solid state battery that had an energy density of 400 watt-hours per kilogram could theoretically hold much more energy than the same physical volume of a lithium-ion battery, allowing for much longer operation between charges.
Charging Times Are Dramatically Reduced
In addition to being able to hold more energy, solid state batteries have the potential to provide very fast charging speeds compared to lithium-ion batteries. Some prototype batteries have been charged using a method that will allow them to be fully charged within minutes instead of hours. One prototype solid state battery demonstrated a five-minute charge time while retaining its useable cycle life characteristics.
This combination of fast charging and increased energy capacity can significantly change the user experience. Instead of charging their batteries every day, consumers may find it necessary to charge them only once a week or less frequently.
Sodium-Ion Batteries: Cost-Effective and Environmentally Responsible Alternatives
Lower Cost & Sustainable Energy Source Materials
Sodium-ion batteries are another emerging battery technology. Instead of using lithium as the source of energy storage, sodium is used for the purposes of energy storage; sodium is a much more abundant element and less expensive than lithium. This fact makes sodium-ion batteries attractive for large-scale power storage as well as for use in consumer electronics.
Modern sodium-ion cells have reached energy densities that are approaching those of lithium-iron-phosphate cells (up to about 175 Wh/kg in some cases). They can charge very quickly, and have been tested for thousands of cycles.
Advantages in Extreme Conditions
Sodium-ion batteries are well-suited for extreme temperature applications, and retain a large percentage of their usable capacity even at very low temperatures. As such, they are ideal for use in devices that will be operated outdoors or in extreme environmental conditions.
Manufacturers are already testing sodium-ion technology for use in electric vehicles and energy storage systems; significant commercial sales are expected to increase substantially in the next few years.
Sodium-ion batteries would enable lower-cost consumer electronics while providing reliable and long-lasting energy-storage capability.
Silicon-Based and Other Advanced Anode Technologies
Increasing Energy Density With Material Science
Redesigning the materials used in the electrodes of a battery is one of the most effective ways to increase battery capacity. Traditional lithium ion batteries use graphite as the anode material, but researchers have shown that silicon can store a much larger number of lithium ions than graphite.
Because silicon can store about 10x as much lithium as graphite does, using silicon-based anodes means the energy density can be significantly increased. However, before now, silicon’s tendency to expand when being charged would cause irreversible structural degradation and thus shorten battery life.
Thankfuly, there have been some recent developments in nanotechnology and advanced material science that are helping to overcome the limitations of using silicon-based anodes. Integrating silicon-carbon composite materials into battery design and nanostructured electrodes results in the ability to charge very quickly and to be able to endure the expansion of silicon; this has tremendous potential for the development of ultra-fast charging batteries.
Fast-Charging to Five Minutes
Due to the advancement of the anode material technologies, also enabling batteries to charge at extreme rates, several novel battery design concepts allow for almost an instantaneous charging experience. Some systems can charge from 10%-70% in approximately five minutes, with the potential of giving long-lasting benefits of fast charging. This development could lead to charging your electric vehicle just as fast as putting fuel into your vehicle.
When integrated into consumer electronics devices, this technology could lead to consumers never charging overnight again.
Hybrid and Intelligent Battery Systems
Combining Multiple Battery Technologies
An additional innovative approach to developing batteries is to use hybrid architectures that combine multiple cells into a single battery. Rather than using a single battery chemistry, hybrid batteries use both chemically optimized cells for energy storage and chemically optimized cells for rapid energy delivery.
A hybrid battery could use both sodium-ion and niobium-oxide batteries; the sodium-ion module would be used for the long-term energy storage component and niobium-oxide would serve as the high-power, rapid-charging module. The combination of these would achieve energy density values greater than 175 Wh/kg; as well as supporting very high speed of charging and long cycle life.
Smart Battery Management Systems (BMS)
Advancements in BMS are equally significant. Current BMS technology incorporates machine learning and predictive methods for monitoring battery temperature, charging, and chemical deterioration; as well as to optimize charge cycles, minimize damage to the internal components of batteries, and maximize battery overall life. Furthermore, BMS software is able to intelligently share the load across all of the cells within the battery to also enhance efficiency and provide protection.
The combination of next generation battery chemistry and intelligent energy management systems has the potential to increase the duration of operation of all electronic devices using them.
New Concepts: Quantum and Metal-Air Batteries
Quantum Batteries
While still in the early stages of testing, quantum batteries are an exciting new development in the energy storage realm. These devices use phenomena associated with quantum mechanics to improve the efficiency of battery charging and discharging.
The development of quantum battery systems on the laboratory scale has been validated by researchers through the storage and release of energy with specially designed microcavity structures. Although real-world applications are still a long way off, these lab experiments represent an entirely new way for battery construction in the future.
Metal-Air Batteries
Metal-air batteries (including silicon-air batteries) also represent another avenue of promising development toward extreme energy density. The major advantage of metal-air batteries is that they use oxygen from the atmosphere in addition to the lithium that is used in traditional lithium ion batteries, thereby eliminating the need for the heavy cathode materials typical of traditional batteries.
In addition to using atmospheric oxygen, metal-air batteries theoretically have an advantage over lithium ion batteries because of their potential energy density combined with very low density weight. Experimental silicon-air batteries have provided evidence that metal-air batteries can have long operation times with very little material used in their construction.
This development could lead to the creation of electronic devices that could run for weeks on a single charge.
Beyond Battery Development: Battery-Less Devices and Energy Harvesting
Researchers focus on improving battery chemistry, while researchers also look for ways to eliminate the reliance on batteries altogether. Energy harvesting technologies allow for devices to generate their own power from the environmental energy (light, heat, vibration or movement) around them.
Many new types of internet-connected sensors and smart devices utilize the sunlight to generate energy for power without having to depend on traditional batteries, while others rely on energy from the movement of people (kinetic energy) to power up small electronics. These advances could reduce the need to frequently charge up wearables, sensors, and smart home systems.
The Road to 1 Week Battery Life
To accomplish the ability for a device to run for one week without charging, several technological advances need to be utilized together. A higher capacity battery will help, but also, improvements in the overall efficiency of a device and the way energy is managed need to improve as well.
Many of today’s processors and other electronic products are being designed to be more energy-efficient so that they can perform more complicated functions while consuming less power, which could lead to a longer run time when used together with batteries of higher capacity and intelligent energy management systems.
In the future, a smartphone will have several of these different types of materials combined into one device such as a solid-state battery with silicon anodes, intelligent energy management software, and fast charging technology. Such a phone could run for days or longer (as long as a week) without needing to be charged again.
Summary
Research into battery technology is currently experiencing increasing amounts of changes occurring at an accelerated rate. Breakthroughs occurring surrounding battery technology include solid-state battery chemistries, sodium-ion-based chemistries, silicon-based anodes, and quantum-based methods for energy storage. All of these technology breakthroughs will allow for the development of safer batteries with shorter charge times, longer life spans, and significantly increased energy density.
As these technologies develop and continue to be commercialized, the way consumer electronics, electric vehicles, and renewable energy systems will function will be significantly altered.
The time frame of creating devices that can run for one week on a single charge is no longer just a thought or dream. The evolution of battery technology along with further advances in the fields of materials science, engineering, and artificial intelligence based energy management will allow for the first generation of batteries to be produced that can support this request and usher in the age of truly high-performance portable technology.
