Scientists at the University of Leeds claim to have reinvented the lithium-ion battery – and they are using a polymer to make the batteries cheaper, more stable, and – most importantly – incredibly flexible. The new Lithium-ion gel polymer battery technology will, in fact, be able to be shaped into just about any form, eliminating the need for special sectioned areas of an enclosure to house them in. Instead, you can just bend them and fill them around any open space that is available. The technology is credited to Professor Ian Ward FRS, who is a Research Professor of Physics at the University, and it’s already been licensed to Polystor Energy Corporation, an American company that has already begun trials to commercialize the cells. While the cells seem to be heading fast towards the portable consumer electronics market, we can’t help but wonder how smaller power tools might far in terms of form factor if they didn’t need to squirrel away those precious square inches of space for the battery.
Lithium-ion Gel Polymer Battery Features
While lithium-polymer batteries aren’t new, they haven’t taken the market by storm in form factors that are completely non-uniform (we haven’t yet observed cases or enclosures being lined with batteries, for example). Professor Ward believes the new gel-type material could be made into thin, flexible films that are easily manufactured and could actually replace the liquid electrolytes used presently in modern lithium cells.
While current lithium-ion technology uses sealed cells with a porous polymer film separating the electrodes, the polymer gel eliminates it entirely. What makes the announcement of a Lithium-ion gel polymer battery even more exciting is that the team developed a patented process to manufacture the thin films called extrusion/lamination. This basically which sandwiches the gel in between the anode and cathode at very high speed (around 33 feet per minute) and produces a highly conductive strip that passes the electrical charge and measures mere nanometers in thickness.
You can then take this gel film and slice it into any size you need. The gel film, for all intents and purposes, appears as a solid sheet, but the contents are 70% cooled liquid gelatin electrolyte. Since the technology is already available to cut and work with these sheets, you can automate the entire process from day one and attain economy of scale – bringing the cost of manufacturing down dramatically.
All of this is fascinating to us, but it’s also amazing to think of how far we’ve already come. While consumer electronics are looking to get smaller and smaller, cordless power tools have more-or-less “arrived”. I mean, how much smaller do we want our Bosch Impact Driver to be? If we remove the battery and work a polymer into the handle, for example, we may end up having to charge the tool, instead of the battery – and that’s not going to work for most continuous-use applications. For power tools, the technology requiring the most updating is the motor.
And for that, brushless technology is on it’s way – in a more affordable form-factor. When products like a Lithium-ion gel polymer battery hit, look for the next wave of tool reduction. As for reduced size and safer lithium-ion, there are plenty of applications where it will be useful as well – particularly in flashlights and portable electrical test and measurement applications which don’t require continuous use.
Bring it on!
