Sony aiming for 40% higher battery life

While smartphones are getting smarter and faster thanks to the efforts of companies like Apple and Samsung, developments in battery technology have lagged, leaving smartphone users wanting increased battery life.

While smartphone manufacturers could theoretically make their devices work on batteries, many of them were obsessed with delivering hyper-thin form factors, with Apple being the prime example.

An inherent problem in significantly improving battery performance is that it is extremely challenging given that there was no real way to work around the laws of chemistry and physics.

Consequently, most improvements in battery efficiency and performance have tended to be incremental in nature.

However, a Nikkei Technology, report said Sony was working on a new type of battery technology that promised to increase the energy density of standard lithium-ion batteries by a whopping 40 per cent.

The company planned to ratchet up to energy density per volume by 40 per cent from the current 700Wh/L to 1,000Wh/L by using a sulfur (S) compound as an electrode material.

Compared with an existing battery with the same volume, the new batteries could up battery life (capacity) by 40 per cent.

According to Nikkei, Sony was working on two different types of battery chemistry - the lithium-sulphur, and a new magnesium-sulfur battery.

How this new battery technology would perform in relation to well-established lithium-ion was not know, but magnesium was more abundant in the earth's crust, did not react in air, and was relatively easy to mine.

Sony was apparently focusing on these new capacities, keeping away from research into lithium-air batteries, which promised enormous energy density leaps, but were volatile and had long-standing problems between them and commercialisation.

With Sony aiming for introduction in 2020 introduction, it could still be 2025 – 2030 before one actually saw widespread adoption across the entire industry.