Batteries

Despite promises of portable alternative power sources, batteries still rule the roost and apart from being a costly form of energy, we all know that we’re contributing a little bit more to the planet’s indigestible waste with each one we purchase – until now! Fuji is announcing a new line of eco-friendly, high performance consumer batteries at CES. EnviroMAX batteries do not contain cadmium or mercury or any ingredients harmful to the environment, are packaged with recycled paper and fully recyclable PET plastic and can be disposed of through normal waste systems or in landfills as they degrade. Fuji is claiming equal or better performance/longevity to the major equivalent brands, and an affordable price. They’re due in stores in April. Stay tuned for more info when we get our hands on a set.  Read More

RichardSolo.com, the brainchild of founder and former CEO of The Sharper Image, Richard Thalheimer, has launched a new back-up battery designed specifically for iPhones. The pocket-sized RichardSolo 1800 has the capacity to more than double the usage time of your iPhone.  Read More

Many notebooks on the market have us reaching for the power cord after just a few hours of continuous use, but HP's latest announcement promises to let you stay away from the mains supply for quite a while longer. Using with an optional ultra-capacity battery, the company's new HP EliteBook 6930p offers up to 24 hours of battery runtime, a feat achieved by a combination of the battery design itself and energy saving components like LED displays and Intel® solid-state hard drives (SSD). Good news for all of us who have ever wandered around an airport looking for a socket.  Read More

February 29, 2008 The award winning Green Cell battery design concept is a universal format cell phone battery that's safe, environmentally friendly and can be recharged or replaced at a local vending machine.  Read More

December 13, 2007 Toshiba have stunned the world with their announcement of what's pretty much the holy grail in Lithium battery technology – the Super Charge ion Battery, which recharges up to 90% of its energy in just five minutes, and has a lifespan of over 10 years. Slow charging has been the key hurdle to public acceptance of battery-electric vehicles as viable distance travelers, so this breakthrough has all sorts of implications for the automotive industry as well as being a very welcome upgrade to a whole host of other portable devices.  Read More

August 6, 2007 Previously ignored energy sources are being revisited as both the global will to conserve energy and the technological means to generate it radically improve. Electromagnetic radiation from our cities, acoustic noise and stray radio waves are now being re-classified as potential power sources and the human body itself is being re-examined as a battery thanks to advances enabling the energy from body heat, motion and even blood pressure to be harnessed. A new thermoelectric system created by researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute is at the forefront of these developments - running on a miniscule 200 millivolts the device is able to create an electrical charge from body heat and could lend itself to an endless array of applications that go way beyond powering your own mobile phone.  Read More

July 3, 2007 Although the technology is still relatively new, motorcycles are emerging as a great platform for the launch of the electric engine revolution. While high-powered, light and compact electric engines (like the 350hp monster Killacycle Drag Bike) are already available, battery range has typically been an issue. This is perhaps more acute in relation to electric cars, whereas motorcycles are often used as joyriding fun toys and short-to-medium-range commuters, so a 100 mile range still leaves for plenty of practical and fun uses for electric road bikes. With major manufacturers being slow to put electric sportsbikes on the market, smaller enterprises are blazing a trail - like GoBike, who are awaiting DOT approval on a converted Triumph Daytona, with a max speed around 93mph, a cruising range of 143 miles, and a blistering 2.7 second 0-60mph acceleration time that should make it a blast to ride.  Read More

March 22, 2007 All is no longer as it seems – the clear flexible plastic in the image is a battery – it is a polymer based rechargeable battery made by Japanese scientists. Drs Hiroyuki Nishide, Hiroaki Konishi and Takeo Suga at Waseda University have designed the battery – which consists of a redox-active organic polymer film around 200 nanometres thick. Nitroxide radical groups are attached, which act as charge carriers. Because of its high radical density, the battery has a high charge/discharge capacity. This is just one of many advantages the ‘organic radical’ battery has over other organic based materials according to the researchers. The power rate performance is strikingly high – it only takes one minute to fully charge the battery and it has a long cycle life, often exceeding 1,000 cycles.  Read More

January 9, 2007 American Power Conversion announced three Universal Notebook Batteries yesterday and the US$200 top-of-the-line, 90 watt-hour model is a ripper offering roughly eight hours of additional runtime in a slim footprint that can rest underneath a notebook computer. Two USB ports supply power over 5V to USB-powered mobile devices, providing additional opportunities to power and charge accessories, such as an iPod and BlackBerry. The Universal Notebook Battery 90 uses lithium polymer battery cells and has an LCD screen that provides real-time status information such as battery capacity, recharge time and battery load, as well as input and output voltage. More details on the batteries within the article – all three batteries will be available in the first quarter of 2007.  Read More