The race for 'power': A quick look at three types of batteries that may change the tech world

While phones are getting smarter, cars evolving with technology and gadgets are getting more powerful by the day, batteries that will keep them running longer still seem like distant dream. The race continues as electronic makers are still looking for reliable cells that can charge faster and also last longer. There’s been a lot of time, effort and research put into building a cheaper, lighter and efficient battery. Gizmodo points out three breakthrough battery research areas and how they could possibly bring the biggest change into the tech world. Firstly, it’s the solid state battery. Now, we’ve often heard about battery explosions, even in mobile devices. This is something that the new solid state batteries will avoid. Solid state batteries do not come with liquid electrolyte altogether, and use a layer of some other material – a mixture of metals – that conduct ions between the electrodes to create energy. But that’s not the only reason. These solid state batteries could prove extremely beneficial to car makers as there’s no liquid component in these cells, they can be smaller, lighter, and more adaptable. The Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy is working on multiple projects to develop solid state lithium ion batteries, or solid state batteries sans lithium altogether. Researchers are also looking to tackle the issue of battery size. In some laptops, the battery takes the most part of the system and puts restriction in building a sleeker device. New micro batteries are aimed at building feather-light products. New research is focussed on what are known as ‘3D’ micro batteries. A 3D battery lets you increase the surface area of the electrodes by interlocking them in microscopic layers. The increase in surface area means the ions can travel faster from one electrode to the other, eventually increasing the rate at which it charges. However, here’s the hiccup - “There’s a trade-off here between power density, the rate that a battery produces energy, and energy density, the overall capacity of a battery,” the report said. Besides explosions, lithium has other drawbacks too. It is expensive to mine, and not-so-efficient at releasing electrons compared to other materials, eventually slower to charge and discharge. The report points out that the interest in aluminium air batteries has intensifies over the years. They are not just the only feasible replacement for gasoline, but could have 40 times the capacity of lithium ion batteries. So, why aren’t we switching to them? The report explains, “The chemical reaction that produces energy in these batteries also happens to come with a considerable drawback. As it interacts with the oxygen, the aluminium degrades over time. It’s a type of battery called a “primary” cell, which means current only flows one way, from the anode to the cathode. That means they can’t be recharged. Instead, the batteries have to be swapped out and recycled after running down.” This means, they wouldn’t really work for gadgets. But the research is still on and companies claim to be making big leaps and trying to bring this technology to market.