Bendy Batteries
Sydney Morning Herald
Monday May 19, 1997
IT'S A mouldable, pliable and bendy battery technology that could soon replace the generation of lithium batteries that power many popular notebooks and mobile phones.
It's called lithium polymer, and comprises lithium (the lightest metal on earth) and five flexible layers of "currentcollecting metal foil" as thin as 100 microns (.004 inches).
A lithium polymer battery (LPB) can be manipulated into any shape and wedged into those previously empty spaces in notebooks, ultimately allowing notebook and mobile phone manufacturers to make much more portable power-hungry electronic devices.
It is believed that LPB is safer because it doesn't leak; is easier to manufacture because it doesn't need to be filled with electrolyte; and is far easier for users to manage because it can be repeatedly charged and discharged without becoming unbalanced. Polymer is a type of plastic which is used instead of the organic electrolyte used in lithium ion batteries.
Toshiba expects to have high-end notebooks featuring LPB available by late 1998.
Ms Zeynep Koch, Toshiba's information systems product manager, said there were still "some overheating problems" which the company aimed to overcome at the Toshiba Asahi Batteries subsidiary in Japan. Also, the batteries could withstand only a limited number of recharging cycles.
IBM also plans to release notebook models featuring lithium polymer batteries, and the NEC product manager for portable systems, Ms Morann Paterson, said that "if Toshiba are doing it, we would be doing it as well". Lithium polymer as a battery technology was originally developed with the electric car in mind. It is jointly funded by 3M, United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), the US Department of Energy and Canada's Hydro-Quebec electric utility.
© 1997 Sydney Morning Herald