New rechargeable alkaline battery technology

[PhotonBoy]

News link

http://www.zmp.com

"Zinc Matrix Power develops a polymer-based rechargeable alkaline battery technology that is very similar to common flashlight battery chemistry, but, has demonstrated about two times the energy to volume of today's lithium-based laptop batteries in lab tests. This could potentially double run times in the same package size as current laptop batteries. Additionally, this technology, like common flashlight batteries, uses a water-based electrolyte which, together with its low pressure flexible plastic case work, minimizes the risk of fire or explosion due to abuse"

 

[Ray_of_Light]

From what I understand, they are a re-visitation of the old-fashioned silver-zinc rechargeable batteries; this time using the crystalline-amorphous technique mastered with Lithium-Ion batteries.
Before the Li-Ion, the Silver-zinc were the only batteries capable of providing high volume energy density. They have been abandoned commercially for the high cost of silver and the ridicoulous low cycle life (less than 50 cycles).
In my opinion, there is no high power density battery that is NOT dangerous.

Anthony

 

[PhotonBoy]

I should have included this earlier: "Zinc Matrix Power and Intel will work together to develop several aspects of this technology, including the battery packaging, charging circuits and fuel gauges, which could enable computer manufacturers to build Intel processor-based laptops powered by this new battery technology."

Intel's involvement is significant, lending a lot of credibility to the technology.

 

[PhotonBoy]

More info here:

http://www.infosyncworld.com/news/n/5016.html

 

[Ray_of_Light]

I checked the link, I hope it is true. MY incredulity come from the fact that the zinc has never lend itself to produce reliable rechargeable batteries, nor very efficient primaries. It contains a lot of energy, in any case. Keep watching...

Anthony