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Science Technology

Recharge Batteries in 30 Secs 423

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'll-believe-it-when-i-see-it dept.
An anonymous reader writes "NEC has developed organic radical batteries which are recharged in 30 seconds. Good news, they won't (probably) cost more than the current NIMH batteries." Why is it that I'm not holding my breath to have this technology in a laptop?
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Recharge Batteries in 30 Secs More

Recharge Batteries in 30 Secs

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  • Moore's Law? (Score:5, Funny)

    by coulbc ( 149394 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:03PM (#8780533)
    So, 7.5 seconds in 18 months?

  • Bad News . . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by StefanJ ( 88986 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:03PM (#8780540) Homepage Journal
    . . . they're only available in "A" and "B" cells.

    Stefan
  • Now I know why I use glasses ... thought it said "orgasmic radical batteries". Whew! Was wondering about the charge my laptop was about to get!

  • "NEC has developed organic radical batteries" (Score:5, Funny)

    by laetus ( 45131 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:04PM (#8780550)
    Somehow I get a picture in my mind of Japanese engineers studying how Berkeley hippies have the energy for university classes AND for protesting every cause under the sun. :)

  • Heat (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Prince Vegeta SSJ4 ( 718736 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:04PM (#8780552)
    I saw no mention of the level of heat generated when charging a battery this fast. I haven't worked out any equations, but I was under the impression that there was a certain amount of heat generated per unit of time when charging / discharging batteries.

    • Re:Heat (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lcsjk ( 143581 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:17PM (#8780710)
      You're right. I should stop there to be funny, but since you mentioned it, the battery heat is due to the internal resistance of the battery. If it is low, the power (current squared times resistance) will be low. Note that the article ended with reference to being able to limit the current from the battery, and that makes me think the internal resistance is low, and therefore, low charge/discharge power for heating.

    • perhaps you assume too much (Score:5, Insightful)

      by way2trivial ( 601132 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:18PM (#8780715) Homepage Journal
      it does not say it uses electricity to recharge.

      perhaps a 30 second recharge means, opening a cap, dumping the contents, and refilling it.. (no heat involved)

      note the words organic and resin

      • Good point.

        Consider this quote:

        NEC is also developing a recharger for the battery that can be used at home

        if it was electricity, wouldn't the creation of a recharger be trivial?

        • Re:perhaps you assume too much (Score:5, Funny)

          by bobbozzo ( 622815 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:26PM (#8780823)
          if it was electricity, wouldn't the creation of a recharger be trivial?

          Unless it needs liquid helium cooling! :p

        • Re:perhaps you assume too much (Score:5, Informative)

          by rgmoore ( 133276 ) * <glandauer@charter.net> on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:44PM (#8781070) Homepage
          if it was electricity, wouldn't the creation of a recharger be trivial?

          Not necessarily; there are some practical problems with this kind of charger. Consider that a typical AA NiMH battery has a charging capacity of about 2 Ah at a voltage of 1.2 V. That's 2 Ah * 3600 s/h * 1.2 V = 8640 J. To charge that in 30 seconds, you need 8640 J / 30 s = 288 W, and that's assuming no losses anywhere. If you want to recharge 4 batteries at a time, you'll need a charger that draws 10+ amps of 120 VAC. A single D battery can have a capacity of up to 11 Ah, so you'd need about 1600 W to recharge one in 30 s. That means that a dual battery charger would draw over 25 amps at 120 VAC. Since most wall sockets are only rated at 15 amps, you'd need a dedicated circut for your charger! It's not an insurmountable problem, but it would make this style of battery a bit less practical.

          • Re:perhaps you assume too much (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Oculus Habent ( 562837 ) * <oculus.habent@gma i l . c om> on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:50PM (#8781140) Journal
            The concept is great, but this is a potential problem with widespread use. They say their first market is Uninterruptible Power Supplies. The short recharge time is great, except the load during that short time will be tremendous.

            Your servers draw 100 amps max? When the power comes back on and all your batteries need to recharge at once, expect a serious spike. I'm not an EE, but if it takes 30 seconds compared to 8 hours, that's 960 times faster, which means 960 times the load per unit of time.

            Accountants as hosting companies will cry every time the power flickers, as the demand charges shoot up 800%
            • ok, a couple of things.

              Standard household breakers are rated at 20 amps, but they would configure these to use less than that. Also, your ovens, old microwaves and driers (some washers as well) have their own ciruit from the amount of current they draw. In a company that has servers that draw a lot of current, they are running special thick wire that supports extra current.

              Accountants crying:
              As long as the power isn't off for too long, the demand won't shoot up much. If the power is off for a second
          • If you know where to get AA batteries with 2Ah of capacity you are soon to be a rich man. The RC Plane community will beat a path to your door. FYI, AAs never hold over 1Ah, and usually far less than that depending on quality.

    • Re:Heat (Score:5, Informative)

      by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:18PM (#8780727)
      Depends on the internal resistance of the battery. You can measure the internal resistance by shorting the battery through an ammeter and measuring the terminal voltage. Terminal voltage when shorted, divided by current through the ammeter, gives internal resistance.

      Now, take the square of the charging current and multiply by the internal resistance. This gives the heat dissipation in watts.

      The article gives no real numbers, but let's assume the battery can supply about 5 amp-hours. To get a full charge in 30 seconds, you would need a charging current of 600 amps (!!) Heat dissipation would be 360000 times the internal resistance of the battery -- in order to dissipate fewer than 10 watts the internal resistance would have to be less than 0.000028 ohms.

      At 0.000028 ohms, and a made-up terminal voltage of 7 volts, you could draw 250000 amps out of such a battery when shorted. Jesus Christ. But those numbers came out of my ass. We need real values...

      • To get a full charge in 30 seconds, you would need a charging current of 600 amps (!!)

        But those numbers came out of my ass. We need real values...

        Yes, the recharge current for a 5 Ahr battery would be at least 600 Amps. If the laptop battery runs at 14 volts, that means that one would need at least a 8400 watt recharger - a solid 70 Amps on a 120 AC circuit.

        As for heat, its more likely that the battery will dissipate a percentage of the input as heat. My understanding is that batteries are only a
        • If the laptop battery runs at 14 volts, that means that one would need at least a 8400 watt recharger - a solid 70 Amps on a 120 AC circuit.

          I'll point out that home circuit breakers blow around 10 to 15 amps, so it would be physically impossible to run such a charger off a normal house circuit (and illegal and dangerous if you modified the fuses to allow it).

        • Re:Heat: some real numbers (Score:5, Insightful)

          by zorander ( 85178 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @01:05PM (#8781318) Homepage Journal
          Well, 30 seconds for a laptop might not be so reasonable, but how about ten minutes? It seems that if the technology is there for such an ultrafast recharge, it should be possible to slow it down (obviously only very special 120VAC outlets in the US will allow you to draw 70 amps). This would knock down our consumption to a much more reasonable 3.5 amps for ten minutes. Still quite a few watts, but not as unreasonable.

          Also, laptop batteries have multiple cells. Perhaps they could be charged in series in an ordering such that adjacent batteries were not recharged in direct sequence, spreading the 'hot spots' out over time.

          There seem to be a lot of ways to potentially slow down the recharge to make the technology more reasonable/scalable, while still having a relatively fast recharge. I'd love to be able to recharge my laptop in the ten minutes between classes, or go halfway in five. It would extend my percieved battery life incredibly. Getting to an outlet for a few minutes at a time is easy. An hour or two is more difficult, as lecture halls aren't wired.

          I like the direction this is going...

          Brian

          • Also, laptop batteries have multiple cells. Perhaps they could be charged in series in an ordering such that adjacent batteries were not recharged in direct sequence, spreading the 'hot spots' out over time.

            That's counter-productive. Assuming a reasonably constant charging resistance (as opposed to a fixed conversion loss of a chemical reaction), your power loss in the battery is I^2*R, and the total heat dumped into the battery during the charging cycle is I^2*R*(Q/I) = QIR (where Q is the total charge

    • Depends on the battery charging efficiency. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:26PM (#8780832) Journal
      I saw no mention of the level of heat generated when charging a battery this fast. I haven't worked out any equations, but I was under the impression that there was a certain amount of heat generated per unit of time when charging / discharging batteries.

      That depends on the efficiency of the charging process in the battery.

      The heat generated is the main limit on charging rate, so I suspect that these puppies have VERY little internal loss when being charged.

      The result will be that even when packaged you won't have a lot of problems with charging heat. If they don't get hot enough to damage the "organic resin" in their own guts, your nearby circuitry should be safe.

      This also implies low losses for the total cycle. That will be very good for the automotive application. As will the lack of anything rarer than Nickel in their construction.

      Nickel-cadmium would have been much better than lead-acid for automotive starter batteries - but that never took over for that service. That's because, if you wanted to put a NiCad starter battery into every car in service even back in the '60s there just wasn't enough readily-minable cadmium reserves known to do the job. It only appears in nature as an impurity in zinc. (So don't even think of making enough NiCad batteries to replace the engines).

  • bunny? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    30 sec to charge--but how long do they last?

    • Re:bunny? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Acidic_Diarrhea ( 641390 )
      "It takes only about 30 seconds to recharge the battery enough to allow 80 hours of continuous operation of an MD player, compared with around an hour needed by conventional rechargeables, the company claims."
      The article also mentions that the batteries are also capable of discharging a large amount of power, which would allow them to be used in appliances requiring more power than a typical battery can provide - but obviously for a shorter period of time.
      • Article seems to speak nothing of the size of these things (I'm thinking BIG). Otherwise, since the marketing is looking at 'emergency' power, air batteries come to mind. Perhaps these things don't recharge very many times before dying a permanant death (less usefull than Nickel-Cadnium).

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:07PM (#8780599)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:bunny? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:09PM (#8780622)
      Hopefully longer than the attention span of morons who can't read entire articles.

  • Finally... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) *
    ...a use for those outlets in airplane bathrooms.
    • Nope, I distinctly remember them saying there is NO smoking in the bathroom.

      Yeah, that wouldn't look suspicious at all either... Carying a big bulky bag with wires coming out of it, into the bathroom.
    • How about shaving ?

      Ho.. wait.. this is slashdot, nevermind. ;-)

      • Re:Finally... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Patrik_AKA_RedX ( 624423 )
        hey, I do have to shave (mostly because if my beard becomes too long it starts to be annoying)

        To those who are still to young to shave:
        Be happy, be very happy. Shaving is annoying and a waste of time. It's not cool. It's just plain annoying and boring after the second time.
        So enjoy while it lasts, 'cus when it starts, you're stuck with it for the rest of your life.

  • The field is huge ... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gustgr ( 695173 ) <gustgr@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:05PM (#8780561)
    Not only at the laptop but that would be really usefull at cellphones and nobreaks (!?).

  • Source (Score:3, Funny)

    by viniosity ( 592905 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:06PM (#8780569) Homepage Journal
    NEC has developed organic radical batteries

    Is it powered by coffee too?

  • Memory Effect solution maybe? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by va3atc ( 715659 ) * on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:06PM (#8780576) Homepage Journal
    The company will initially try to commercialize the technology for using the battery as an emergency power source for computers, according to sources at NEC.

    You mean so I can even get first posts when the power is out?

    Though I'm curious with something...
    Will this be plagued by the Mysterious Memory Effect of Rechargeable Batteries [computerworld.com]?
    • Will this be plagued by the Mysterious Memory Effect of Rechargeable Batteries?

      It's hard to tell from the article, but the chemistry sounds more like that of Nickel Metal Hydride than Nickel Cadmium. So I suspect memory effect will be absent or very small.

  • Sounds good... but (Score:3, Interesting)

    by deadmongrel ( 621467 ) <karthik@poobal.net> on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:07PM (#8780581) Homepage
    I don't know much about batteries but there is a certain number of charging cycles the rechargable batteries can handle and after which they die(or performance becomes poor). I wonder how they address this issue.

  • NEC Develops Fastest Rechargeable Battery (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:07PM (#8780587)
    April 2, 2004 (TOKYO) -- NEC Corp has developed a battery that can be recharged only in 30 seconds, company sources said. Called an organic radical battery, it can be recharged to the same level of power as that stored in nickel-hydrogen cells, which are widely used in digital cameras, portable MD players and other electronic devices.

    It takes only about 30 seconds to recharge the battery enough to allow 80 hours of continuous operation of an MD player, compared with around an hour needed by conventional rechargeables, the company claims.

    Because of its ability to recharge faster, the new battery, which stores power in a special resin, is expected to make radio-controlled toy cars, shavers and other products much more convenient to use.

    The battery can also discharge power in a short time, making it useful in applications requiring a large amount of power.

    NEC believes the battery can be used as an emergency power source for computers in case of blackouts as well as in hybrid cars driven by a gasoline engine and electric motor.

    The company plans to convert existing production facilities into ones able to manufacture the new product. The company expects the price of the new battery to be about the same as nickel-hydrogen cells when mass production starts, since it does not contain any expensive materials.

    NEC is also developing a recharger for the battery that can be used at home as well as working on a way to prevent excessive discharge of power from the cell.

    The company will initially try to commercialize the technology for using the battery as an emergency power source for computers, according to sources at NEC.

  • Good vs Bad (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dark Lord Seth ( 584963 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:07PM (#8780598) Journal
    Good news, they won't (probably) cost more than the current NIMH batteries.

    The bad news is that they start to pulsate gamma radiation, require the sacrifice of an unborn child conceived during a full moon and each recharged battery causes an angel to lose his or her wings.

    Please, think of the angels!

  • Great Marketing?? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bp2179 ( 765697 )
    The company plans to convert existing production facilities into ones able to manufacture the new product. The company expects the price of the new battery to be about the same as nickel-hydrogen cells when mass production starts, since it does not contain any expensive materials.
    NEC is also developing a recharger for the battery that can be used at home as well as working on a way to prevent excessive discharge of power from the cell.

    so...the batteries will be cheap, but the recharger will be the mone

  • Mis-targeted? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by guido1 ( 108876 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:08PM (#8780603)
    The company will initially try to commercialize the technology for using the battery as an emergency power source for computers, according to sources at NEC.

    I'm suprised the first thing they're shooting for is the UPS market. I would have thought a bigger market would have been standard-sized batteries (AA, AAA, etc)

    The article itself mentions many other uses, including RC cars, digital cameras, etc...

    Guess they know their market better than I do.

    • Why UPS units need this... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:16PM (#8780695)
      If you've ever had the misfortune of keeping a server up and running while there is major construction going on nearby, you know you can get multiple blackouts of varying duration.

      I like to use a UPS to support a server to the last safe second with enough time for an orderly shutdown... but I can't, because I need to know the UPS will last through at least two consecutive blackouts without time to recharge.

      Now, with a 30 second recharge, servers under my care could survive twice the blackout duration without increasing the risk of a sudden shutdown.

    • Re:Mis-targeted? (Score:3, Informative)

      by pavon ( 30274 )
      I think this might have something to do with that decision:

      NEC is also developing a recharger for the battery that can be used at home as well as working on a way to prevent excessive discharge of power from the cell.

      It looks like right now the battery is good for high amp charge/discharge but they still need some work to safely power low amp devices.

      From the discussions below, one also gets the impression that this thing needs one hell of a charger to charge it in thiry seconds which would explain w

  • Conversion ratio? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheDigitalOne ( 105087 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:08PM (#8780609)
    Unless they have a 100% conversion of source electricity to storage these batteries are going to have very limited capacities. Imagine how much heat a 1200mAh battery would give off if only 90% of the charge is actually stored and the rest goes to waste heat during that 30 second charge cycle.

    • Not so hot. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Fzz ( 153115 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:45PM (#8781076)
      1200mAh. 1.2V. OK, so P=VI and P=E/t, so E=VIt.
      Thus the battery holds about 1.2 * 3600 * 1.2 = about 5KJoules.

      90% charge efficient means 500Joules as heat.

      E = c * m * delta_T
      where c = specific heat capacity, m = mass, delta_T = temperature change.

      According to Sony, a AA battery is 30g. I don't know what the specific heat capacity of a battery is, but metals are between 0.1 and 0.9, and water is 4. Lets assume it's 1.0 J/gK.

      delta_T = E/c*m = 500/(1.0 * 30) = 16 celcius.

      That's about 30F for those of you who like odd units. Not such a big deal.

      Of course the 90% number is drawn out of the air.

  • Possibly some safety issues (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:08PM (#8780612)
    From the article:
    The battery can also discharge power in a short time, making it useful in applications requiring a large amount of power.

    One of the nice things about current batteries is that you can't get them to discharge very quickly. Shorting these out might cause excessive heat issues.

  • fast discharge too... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Polo ( 30659 ) * on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:08PM (#8780615) Homepage
    So fast discharge is allowed as well...

    At first, I thought of quick-charging camera flashes. Maybe even video with flashes? But then I started thinking about railguns and emp devices...

  • Every advantage comes at a cost (Score:4, Interesting)

    by zuikaku ( 740617 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:09PM (#8780619)
    The battery can also discharge power in a short time, making it useful in applications requiring a large amount of power.

    ... but ...

    NEC is ... working on a way to prevent excessive discharge of power from the cell.

    So, it can be used to discharge a great amount of power, but the trick is keeping it from doing so when you don't want it to!

  • Cars (Score:2)

    by crow ( 16139 )
    The recharge time was one of the big obstacles to electric cars. While the future seems to be fuel cells, this may give auto makers a reason to look at electric again. Of course, there are still issues with batteries for cars (weight, cost, life expectancy, etc.).
    • It seems to me that the limiting factor with recharging electric cars wasn't the batteries but the current supply. I think some of them had a 120v charger that would take all night and a 240v 3-phase charger that did it in 4 or 5 hours but required professional installation and wasn't very useful anywhere but at home.

    • Re:Cars (Score:3, Flamebait)

      by dave420 ( 699308 )
      You forgot one issue hampering electric cars - republicans.

      :-P

  • How long with it be 80 times though? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by oolon ( 43347 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:10PM (#8780628)
    I wonder what the polerisation and memory effects will be though. Most rechargable devices are pretty good (have acceptabl life times) when new, 6 months in the battery usage level has falled to almost unacceptable levels. As an example Sony only waranties batteries for 1 month! If they offer 80 times more storage but die off to 1 times storage in 6 months, this would infact be worse, because devices would be made to "use" the extra power.

    James

  • Picture (Score:5, Informative)

    by Fortress ( 763470 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:10PM (#8780629) Homepage
    You can see a picture of it here:

    http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/FR/TNKS/TNKSHM/newpr o/
  • So is CERN going to replace the capacitance trees with a bunch of these little batteries to power their super-collider?
  • I wonder how much current draw battery chargers would use?

    I can imagine that it would be significantly more than the 1.5A my 4xAA 30 minute charger uses.

  • Because... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Trolling4Dollars ( 627073 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:13PM (#8780656) Journal
    Why is it that I'm not holding my breath to have this technology in a laptop?

    Because carrying around a human being in a por with life sustaining fluids being pumped in through tubules and feeding a fake virtual world to imprint on his consciousness until he realizes that he's not living in the real world after taking the right pill is just not as portable as today's batteries. ;P

  • What about the electric Car. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:13PM (#8780659)
    The article states it is good for Hibrid cars what about electrical ones. I thought a Major problem with electric cars is the time it takes to recharge thus making them impractical in long drives.

    • Re:What about the electric Car. (Score:4, Informative)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:43PM (#8781049) Homepage
      Well, that would be assuming you had recharging stations along the way. As you don't the limited battery capacity is really the limiter of the distance an electric car can go. Hybrid cars, on the other hand, recharge and exhaust batteries repeatedly in any given drive. The ability to absorb a large amount of energy and return it at will would be ideal.

  • Hot! (Score:2, Funny)

    by jmckinney ( 68044 )
    Ow! Hot! Hothothothot!

  • I know why (Score:3, Funny)

    by QuantumFTL ( 197300 ) * on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:14PM (#8780664)
    Why is it that I'm not holding my breath to have this technology in a laptop?

    Hmm... Lets look at the numbers here... I'll use the numbers for my trusty 17" powerbook.

    The power supply for charging the battery puts out about 60 Watts of power. The article mentions that instead of taking an hour to charge, these batteries only take half a minute. That's 120 times the power, which means the total power used by a charger for my laptop using these batteries would be...

    7200 Watts! Holy hairdryers batman! With power consumptions like this, your athelon wouldn't be the only thing that's ON FIRE in your laptop!

    And remember where we like to keep our laptops!

    Cheers,
    Justin

  • some calculations (Score:4, Informative)

    by thorgil ( 455385 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:14PM (#8780671) Homepage
    my laptop battery is a 4400 mAh at 14.8 V
    4.4 Ah * 3600 sek *14.8 -> 234432 Ws
    (Whow a palindrome number... coool)

    divide this at the recharge time
    30 sek
    ~ 7.8 kW

    I live in an appartment.
    My outlets cant handle that much..

    + Needs heck of an transformer to handle that effect. /T

  • NIMH? (Score:3, Funny)

    by abram10 ( 755205 ) <abram10@aol.com> on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:15PM (#8780682)
    Is that National Institute of Mental Health (I'm serious; I don't know what it means. (I know it's NOT that!))?

  • Yikes! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dpbsmith ( 263124 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:16PM (#8780694) Homepage
    If we assume that these batteries have a capacity of 1000 mah, which seems like a reasonable figure since they say they can power an MP3 player for 80 hours, then charging it in 30 seconds implies that during the charging process it is accepting 120 watts.

    a) That's not going to be any tiny little wall transformer doing the charging.

    b)I sure hope they have the safety and quality assurance issues worked out, because if it doesn't shut off at the exact instant when the battery is fully charged, that 120 watts is going to go somewhere.

    It might not be much more dangerous than a firecracker but I suspect it could be pretty dramatic.

    • You don't have to (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:25PM (#8780814) Homepage Journal
      Well, just because you _can_ charge them in 30 seconds doesn't mean you _have to_.

    • Re:Yikes! (Score:3, Informative)

      by jone1941 ( 516270 )
      Read the article again, it isn't an MP3 player, it is a minidisc player. That is a huge difference. My lowend mp3 player runs for ~10hrs on a single AA battery, compare that to a minidisc player that runs for ~50hrs on a single AA battery. There is a world of difference between these two devices.

  • Old press release (Score:5, Informative)

    by guido1 ( 108876 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:17PM (#8780708)
    Found an old press release [nec.co.jp] from '01 on NEC's web site documenting the discovery of this battery technology.

    With this latest (today's) press release it sounds like they're finally ready for product.

  • Some side effects (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Occasionally these organic radical batteries will burn down your SUV and they're constantly complaining every time you eat pork chops or wear fur.
  • The write-up mentions how this will improve current battery using applications, but I'm wondering what completely new applications this might make possible, potential products which were completely infeasible with slow charge times.

    Any ideas?

  • more info (Score:5, Informative)

    by vittal ( 52825 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:19PM (#8780739) Homepage
    http://www2.electrochem.org/cgi-bin/abs?mtg=012&ab s=0186&type=pdf
    Abs. 186, IMLB 12 Meeting, (C) 2004 The Electrochemical Society, Inc.

    Organic Radical Battery:
    Transition-metal free Lithium-ion Battery

    Kentaro Nakahara, Jiro Iriyama, Shigeyuki Iwasa, Masahiro Suguro and Masaharu Satoh

    Fundamental & Environmental Research Laboratories
    NEC Corporation

  • This would be... (Score:5, Funny)

    by vsack ( 558342 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:21PM (#8780759)
    A good compliment to my current laptop battery which, at 3 years of age, discharges in under 30 seconds.
  • with fuel cells, it's just "pour". It's hard to beat that....(only batteries that charge themselves will beat pouring).

    Of course, if it can be recharged in less than 30s, I wonder how much current the charger needs to do that. 1800mAh (capacity of most AA NiMH batteries) in 30secs would mean 1800mAh x 3600s/h x 1/30s = 216A. Or maybe instead of being continuous current, it's pulsed?

    Either way, I'll wait until it's out on the market.

  • Hey hey, all right! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Douglas Simmons ( 628988 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:26PM (#8780821) Homepage
    This is like flying your F-16 behind a KC-135R Stratotanker for a quick refill.

    With all the improvements in technology, the only thing majorly lagging has been battery performance -- something critical as we're going mobile everything. The only reason I've never bought a laptop is because the damn things die so fast that there's basically no point when you can just wait until you get back to your desktop. All this fuel-cell/fission battery nonsense has struck me as vaporware at best, I hope this is for real.

    My question is if a battery can be refilled that fast, how much juice is needed for the job? More than what a 12-volt adapter would put out? If it's small enough, you could conceivably put your own "Stratotanker" in your suitcase and refill your batteries on the road with no need for a power outlet.

    Oh yeah, and all these silly electric cars could now become practical. You could recharge your vehical faster than a conventional gas pump. Way to go, NEC! Bring on the radical batteries.

  • My Organic Batteries (Score:3, Funny)

    by Analogy Man ( 601298 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:27PM (#8780845)
    It takes me about 10 days of listening to rolling surf sipping rum drinks with little umbrellas to recharge my organic batteries.

  • What about expanding the upper limit? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:29PM (#8780871) Homepage
    How big are these batteries compared to standard laptop cells? Would it be possible to expand in the other direction, by keeping the charge time around today's levels but greatly increasing the discharge time? I wouldn't mind charging my laptop for the usual 3 or 4 hours if I can use it for a day or more without having to plug in again.

  • What about all that current? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AtlanticGiraffe ( 749719 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:31PM (#8780896) Homepage
    Somebody mentioned heat generation. What about other issues regarding the current? If that much energy were to be drawn from a single power socket in my house in 30 seconds, something would break. Even if it had wires thick enough and some cooling unit for the battery, a fuse would break. How do they deal with this?

  • Amperages? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Spazmania ( 174582 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:34PM (#8780925) Homepage
    30 seconds eh? My laptop battery (HP Pavilion Notebook) delivers 11.1 volts and holds a charge of 3.8 amp-hours. Lets do a little math.

    3.6 amp-hours * 3600 seconds/hour = 12960 amp-seconds
    12960 amp-seconds * 11.1 volts = 143856 watt-seconds

    As a US resident, I'll be charging from a 120 volt source. I'll skip the AC to DC intricacies and for the sake of simplicity I'll also assume a 1:1 charging efficiency (i.e. no energy lost to heat).

    143856 watt-seconds / 30 seconds ~= 4800 watts
    4800 watts / 120 volts = 40 amps

    Now, your typical household circuit is 15 amps. Try to charge that laptop battery in 30 seconds and you're going to throw the breaker.

  • Rayovac IC-3 NiMH -- 15 minute Charge (Score:3, Informative)

    by yetiman ( 262330 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:37PM (#8780965) Homepage
    I use them in all of my portable devices (mp3 players, digital camera, minidisc, discmans etc) and they are by far the best battery I've ever used.

    Full charge in 15 minutes, or i believe it's a 75% charge in eight minutes. I know wal-mart carries them...check them out.

  • battery technology (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cynikal ( 513328 ) on Tuesday April 06, 2004 @12:42PM (#8781037) Homepage
    i remember readng an article once that said if battery technology had advanced over the last 50 years as fast as electronics has (smaller/more power) that by today, a battery the size of a watch battery would be able to power your house.

    its nice to see any kind of advancement in the powercell area

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