A pleasant surprise from Samsung's research team: The evolution of our mobile devices seems to give us more and more capabilities every year, but they are still limited by relatively older technology. The batteries they use typically only last a day.
Samsung's research team working on the subject is preparing something that can almost double battery life, essentially increasing the percentage of stored energy density.
Scientists announced that it is possible to increase the lifespan of a battery by 1.8 times.
Neowin reports that the researchers published how they managed to get these results in their laboratories.
Samsung's team of scientists used silicon anodes instead of the traditional graphite ones. This approach has shown positive results, but the problem was that silicon expands and contracts during battery charging and discharging.
To address this, the Samsung team created a process for growing graphene cells on silicon layers that can be tailored to prevent the silicon from swelling.
“The graphene layers present on the silicon surface hold the silicon volume increase between the neighboring graphene layers. When the technique is combined with a lithium cobalt cathode, the silicon carbide without the graphene coating allows the energy storage cells to reach volumetric energy densities of 972 and 700 Wh L-1 in the first and 200th cycles, which are, respectively, 1.8 and 1.5 times higher than those of today’s commercial lithium-ion batteries.”
The technology sounds promising, but you should keep in mind that this is a research project. In order to have a commercial application, a lot of testing time will have to pass, so that we don't have unpleasant phenomena, such as, for example, a device catching fire in our pocket.
