The Korea Times reports the technique results in the production of lithium ion batteries with double the cell density of current models. It means that future smartphones could hold twice as much charge as they do today but without the battery itself getting any larger.
Samsung announced the technology in the science journal Nature Communications yesterday. Its design is now pending patent approval in Korea, the United States, Europe and China.
The usage of the new graphene-based cathodes is still being researched, so it will be some time before products begin shipping with the new batteries. Samsung is hoping to commercialize the technology within the next two or three years and should begin using it in its own phones within the next three.
Lithium ion batteries have not progressed very far since their introduction in the 1990s. Developments have generally been slow and modest so that today they still face the same issues as ever: prohibitive capacities and a finite optimum life span.
Companies have generally aimed to increase capacity so that phones and tablets can survive a day of usage but this has led to sacrifices in total life span. Smartphone owners regularly complain of decreased battery performance after owning a phone for a while because each li-ion battery made can only hold its design capacity for a certain number of “charge cycles”.
Because of this, it is good to see Samsung actively working on these issues. By doubling battery capacity, most phones will eventually end up with units capable of holding over 6,000mAh of charge which should be enough to get even the most intensive of users through a day — even when the battery begins to wear out.
