Centauri's Thoughts

Lithium Ion batteries can be made to charge MUCH faster by changing part of the process of how they are made

A prototype battery made using the new technique could be charged in less than 20 seconds - in comparison to six minutes with an untreated sample of the material.

This is a factor of 18, so a laptop that takes 2 hours to charge now would only be 6.66 minutes. A large Lithium Ion battery (say for a hybrid or EV car) needing an 8 hours charge would be reduced to 26 minutes.

The whole article is here and another reference here.

Update: now up by factor of a 100

Now Kang and Ceder have found that coating each ball with a thin layer of lithium phosphate accelerates this process even further, perhaps because the coating is an excellent conductor of lithium ions, swiftly transporting them to and from the surface of the nanoballs.

If cellphone batteries can be made using the material, they could charge in 10 seconds flat, the researchers calculate (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature07853). Bigger batteries for plug-in hybrid electric cars could charge in just 5 minutes - compared with about 8 hours for existing batteries - though this would require a very high-powered charger.

Reference: newscientist.com