I thought I was good at charging. For example, my phone charges wirelessly overnight, so I hardly die. And if it’s dropping in the afternoon, blast it with juice from the fast charger. However, my battery maximum capacity has recently dropped to the 80% range. It’s only a matter of time before you need to get a new battery.
Lithium-ion batteries that strengthen our phones, laptops and even cars are inherently incomplete and doomed to deteriorate over time. Almost everything we do makes this happen faster. The wireless charger I use overnight generates excessive heat and speeds up battery degradation. Same as above for fast charging.
This means that it is virtually impossible to charge your phone correctly.
While certain tips and tricks can speed up the process and extend the life of your phone’s battery, there’s nothing you can do about limiting your device’s lithium-ion battery. They all end up stopping their fees being held. That means it needs to be replaced at all times. Lithium-ion batteries, especially inexpensive batteries, can also explode without warning.
However, there is new hope for a breakthrough in battery technology.
The Boston-based startup called Pure Lithium recently announced a breakthrough with lithium metal batteries. Cell phone lithium-ion batteries begin to deteriorate significantly after several hundred cycles of charge and discharge, but these lithium metal batteries, which use pure lithium rather than lithium compounds, are 2,000 without significant damage decomposition It may last longer than the cycle. Test show. Additionally, lithium metal batteries can store twice as much energy and can store half the weight of traditional lithium-ion batteries. Emily Bodoin, co-founder and CEO of Pure Lithium, calls the combination the function “the Holy Grail of Energy Storage.”
“There’s been a lot of inventions in battery space over the past 20 years, so it needs to be changed,” Bodoin told me. “(But) you can’t feel it on your phone or on your device.”
That said, you can’t currently buy an iPhone with a lithium metal battery. Lithium metal batteries are still under development, along with the remaining battery technology that can withstand lithium ions.
Therefore, lithium-ion batteries are incomplete, but have remained ubiquitous for decades. The supply chain required to build lithium-ion batteries, especially EV batteries, is highly dependent on China, but it can also be scaled up in ways that experimental battery technology cannot. According to McKinsey, global demand for lithium-ion batteries will reach 700 gigawatt hours in 2022, with demand expected to increase by 30% per year until reaching 4,300 gigawatt hours in 2030, thanks mainly to EVS. Putting that into context, 4,300 kilowatt hours is enough to drive a year of one year, or more than 400,000 homes, roughly equivalent to the annual production of Hoover Dam.
Lithium-ion batteries are key to the transition to renewable energy, as they are gradually improving. For example, I’m not good at charging my phone, but my phone won’t explode or stop working immediately. You can also drive an EV of about 300 miles before you need to charge it. However, the ability to pack even more energy into the battery is innovative.
“With another generation of battery technology, there would be three or five more, ideally more than ten times the energy density,” said IEEE Fellow Stuart Lipoff. “It could enable a whole new generation of devices.”
This kind of technological revolution doesn’t just mean that cell phone batteries last for days. Like ultra-light augmented reality glasses that don’t need to be charged, it could lead to devices that completely replace your phone. And the innovative new batteries don’t just offer long-lasting EV batteries. It can be used on airplanes, trains and container ships equipped with batteries.
But in the meantime, we’ve all stuck to lithium-ion batteries and many of their obstacles, but there are ways to manage them.
Lithium-ion battery technology is M. It dates back to 1972 when Stanley Whittingham first developed it on Exxon everywhere. Exxon predicted that oil production would eventually decline, and the researchers were looking for alternative energy sources. The company showed off the design of Whittingham at the 1977 Chicago Auto Show, which helped lithium-ion batteries make the EVS mainstream.
These batteries beat the consumer technology industry, first appeared on the Sony Handycam model, then returned to EVs. All three scientists, Whittingham, Akira Yoshino and John Goodenough, shared the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their contributions to the development of lithium-ion technology.
How lithium-ion batteries work
The battery is made up of three essential components: the anode, cathode and electrolyte. (Normally, the anodes labeled with the A+ symbol and the cathode A- symbol are displayed.)
When a battery is in use, a series of chemical reactions expel electrons from the electrons through the electrolytes into the cathode. When the chemical energy between the two poles reaches equilibrium, the reaction stops and the battery dies until it is charged. Adding current reverses the reaction, causing the electrons to return to the anode and the battery to recharge.
Lithium-ion batteries use graphite as the anode and lithium compounds as the cathode. Usually it is lithium cobalt oxide. (China is the world’s largest producer of graphite, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the largest product of cobalt, presenting the issues of the potential supply chain in the United States.)
The material used for the cathode also determines the energy density of the battery, so lithium gets all credits. Although there are other battery chemicals, lithium is widely considered the best material for cathodes due to its high energy density.
It was commercialized in the 1980s after Yoshino and Goodenough advanced lithium-ion battery technology. Sony helped popularize the term “lithium ion” when it released its first commercially available rechargeable lithium-ion battery in 1991.
“Lithium-ion batteries are really great, but not perfect,” said Matthew McDowell, co-director of the Georgia Tech Advanced Battery Center. “They don’t intend to go anywhere anytime soon.”
The advantages and disadvantages of lithium-ion batteries were apparent from the start. They can pack large amounts of energy into small, lightweight packages, making them ideal for portable consumer gadgets such as camcorders, smartphones, and EVs.
But they can work technically for years, but lithium-ion batteries can be charged and released multiple times before the materials inside them deteriorate until they stop working . This is still true today. So, at certain points, you need to throw away small devices like AirPods because the battery doesn’t hold the charge and can’t be replaced.
“Lithium-ion batteries just won’t improve anymore,” Bodoin said. “They just can’t. They have the theoretical energy density that they can achieve, and you can’t make it bigger. That’s the problem.”
The beauty of battery management
However, the battery life has been improved. The latest iPhone will last longer than last year’s iPhone, but that’s not necessarily due to a breakthrough in lithium-ion battery technology. Software that manages how a device’s battery changes and discharges is just as important as battery chemistry itself these days.
That’s why there are so many tips and tricks to recharge your phone. If done properly, you can avoid the drawbacks of the battery, not only keeping the charge longer, but also extending the entire life of the battery.
To optimize battery life and life, ideally charge your phone between 20-80% in a room of about 65 degrees at all times. If the battery is empty, too hot or too cold, it will deteriorate faster. And when charging, don’t overdo it with a very strong adapter. Because it can heat the battery and degrade again. (Charger power is measured in watts, with higher watts supporting faster charging.)
It is virtually impossible to meet all these conditions and live a normal life. Furthermore, degradation is inevitable with lithium-ion batteries, so even if you do everything right, you’ll end up fighting a losing battle.
This is why device manufacturers are always improving their battery management software because they are familiar with the drawbacks of lithium-ion batteries. As the battery approaches 100%, charging slows down, also known as “trickle charging,” so you don’t really need to worry too much about the battery getting full. It is also difficult to completely drain the battery. Because the device shuts off when there are still a few percentage points left. These battery management features are likely to protect the health of your battery when using a fast charger.
This all becomes good and bad news.
The good news is that despite the many myths surrounding proper charging technology, it is designed to compensate for the shortcomings of your phone, laptop, and even lithium-ion battery technology. You may be less good at charging your phone recently, and your phone will take care of itself. If you are really worried about the health of your battery, avoid speed charging and charging all night, and don’t leave your phone burnt in the sun. But most of the time, you simply accept that your phone’s lithium-ion battery will simply stop working after a few hundred cycles.
The bad news is that the step changes in battery technology that brings battery-equipped planes are years apart. For new battery technology, breakthroughs like the pure lithium experiment mentioned above are just one step in the long road to commercialization. After all, it took 20 years from the first invention of the lithium-ion battery to the introduction of the handcam. It’s long enough for the handcamp itself to become obsolete for a generation and again trendy with kids who are troubled by nostalgia.
To borrow a quote, Lithium-ion is not the right battery for us, but it is the battery we currently need.
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