The next notebook battery? Lithium polymer

The next notebook battery? Lithium polymer

A battery technology that was dell laptop battery,touted nine years ago for notebooks may finally get its day in the sun.

Notebook makers will "likely" soon choose to incorporate lithium polymer batteries over the current commonly used type, lithium ion batteries, Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow said during a meeting with reporters Wednesday.

Stan Glasgow Lithium polymer batteries use lithium as an active ingredient. Lithium is a volatile material, but the lithium in these batteries isn't packed into cells as it is in lithium ion batteries. Instead, it is contained in a polymer gel. These gel batteries can't provide the same sort of energy density as lithium ion batteries, but that's now a plus.

Manufacturers, and in particular Sony, have pushed the energy density (or capacity) of lithium ion batteries. When an internal short occurs, it can set off a chain reaction and start a fire. Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Apple Computer and others, in conjunction with Sony,Latitude D500, have offered to take back millions of lithium ion batteries shipped with particular notebooks in the past two years.

"There is not too much more power we want to cram into lithium ion," Glasgow said.

Historically, polymer batteries have not been able to provide the long battery life manufacturers and consumers demand. Mitsubishi put lithium polymer batteries in its ill-fated Pedion notebook in 1997. The notebook sported several design novelties--it was far thinner than contemporary designs and was the first notebook with a shiny metallicLatitude D600,Latitude D610, chassis--but it cost nearly $6,000 and had some mechanical problems.

Despite their struggles, industrial designers have always liked lithium polymer because gel packs can be squeezed into devices' empty spaces. Lithium polymer has also improved over time. Some manufacturers are using it in phones.

Several companies are responding to the hazards of lithium ion by coming out with nonlithium batteries. Latitude D505,Zinc Matrix Power and PowerGenix, for example, are promoting zinc-based batteries for notebooks and other devices. Zinc Matrix says it will start shipping batteries in 2007. Glasgow asserted that that these battery technologies could take a little while to get to market.

"I don't think anything new is going to be available in the next 12 to 18 months," he said.

MTI Micro Fuel Cells and others will also try to popularize fuel cells, which harvest electricity for notebooks by passing methanol through a membrane.

After two reports of flaming laptop batteries, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced Thursday that Hewlett-Packard is voluntarily recalling 70,000 lithium-ion batteries that shipped with several models of its HP and Latitude D610,Compaq laptops.

HP's Pavilion dv9500 is one of 21 HP laptops affected by Thursday's battery recall.

(Credit: CNET)

The recall affects nine models of HP Pavilions, nine models of Compaq Presarios,Latitude D510, two models of HPs, and one HP Compaq laptop model sold between August 2007 and March 2008. For the full list, see the CPSC's site.

There were two separate reports of batteries that "overheated and ruptured, resulting in flames/fire that caused minor property damage" but no injuries, according to the CPSC report.

HP is instructing consumers who may be part of the recall to remove the battery from their notebook and contact HP to find out if theirs is affected. Latitude D520,HP says it will provide a free replacement battery. For more information, see HP's Battery Replacement Program site.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP is the world's largest computer vendor, and like many of its peers in the industry has been part of several similar battery recalls. The most recent incident involved 100,000 Sony-made batteries faulted for overheating late last year. HP had sold 32,000 of the affected batteries in its laptops. But that was tiny by comparison to the massive recall caused by Sony batteries in 2006.