Toshiba introduces super battery
13 February 2008
Three years after its lithium-ion technology, Toshiba Corporation will be shipping the SCiB, super-charge ion battery.
The battery enables industrial systems to recharge to 90 per cent of full capacity in under five minutes. Even with the rapid charging, the company claims that the battery life cycle is over 10 years.
Toshiba uses a new negative electrode material, new separators, new electrolyte and new manufacturing technology to create the SCiB to achieve the reliability and performance with safety, longevity and rapid charge-discharge capability. The SCiB is housed in the standard module-ten 4.2A/hour (Ah) with cells aligned in series connection. This is claimed to maximise battery characteristics with a battery management system that monitors voltage and temperature and balances the state of charge in each cell.
The negative-electrode material offers a high level of thermal stability and a high flash point electrolyte, and has a structure resistant to internal short circuiting and thermal runaway. The possibility of rupture or combustion is very low, says the company.
The battery's capacity loss after 3,000 cycles of rapid charge and discharge is less than 10 per cent. It has a long lifecycle, and is able to repeat the charge-discharge cycle over 5,000 times. This means that the SCiB can be continuously used for more than 10 years with a once- a-day recharge-discharge cycle, according to the company.
The SCiB is suited to high-power applications as it has an input- output performance equivalent to that of an electric double layer capacitor. It operates in extremes of temperatures with sufficient discharge down to -30°C.
Expected applications are to energise and reduce waste in industrial systems and electronic vehicles as well as in emergency power sources and electric power regeneration in wind power systems. In hybrid cars is planned as is further development of the SCiB cell for application in electric cars.
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