Panasonic CES2017 flexible lithium battery: thickness of only 0.45 mm
Publish：Sino Energy Corporation Time：2017-01-13
[lithium engineering comprehensive report]
The shape of most wireless devices depends on the shape of the battery. Because the battery as a heavy but very important components in the assembly can not be adjusted or directly to give up. So when designing a new device, the product developer is always limited by the size, shape and flexibility of the battery.
But this year at the CES conference in Las Vegas, Panasonic demonstrated a new type of lithium battery, may be able to change all this. It uses ArgentCrystal round thin, can bend or twist after 1000 times the storage capacity remains 80%. Panasonic shows three versions of the new batteries at the CES conference, each a little smaller than a credit card, and can be folded into a can.
The project started in 2008. But Matsushita was in September this year before the external release tone. YorikoYagi, assistant director of the energy department of Panasonic wearable, announced that the battery is now ready for mass production, and she is expected to be in mass production between April 2018 and March 2019.
Yagi said: we are increasing the number of small devices, such as some wearable devices and networking devices, these products are designed depending on the size of the battery. If we want to make the device smaller, smaller batteries are needed."anasonic flexible battery, the thickness of only 0.45 mm, the battery capacity is relatively small. Its largest version - CG-064065 maximum battery capacity of 60mAh, the smallest version is only 17.5mAh. In contrast, the maximum smartphone battery peak capacitance is about 3500mAh
This means that the best application scenario of this new type of battery is wearable card devices and networking applications. Panasonic from October this year to provide some samples for potential users, but the company has not yet priced on this battery.
The flexible battery in the future can extend some of the more portable smart phones and other small devices. "Basically Panasonic can complete these designs, but our goal is not to do this," Yagi said." This reminds us of a number of smart phones on the high-capacity lithium battery explosion things (RIPfor Samsung Note7). Security concerns Panasonic is now starting to focus only on low power wearable and networking devices.
There are many other companies and researchers are also developing flexible lithium batteries, but Yagi pointed out that Panasonic‘s battery has the best performance and the best test record.
In order to develop this flexible battery, Panasonic rethink the basic elements of battery design. Lithium battery anode is lithium cathode, graphite. The two layers are separated by a liquid or a colloidal electrolyte. When the battery is charged, the lithium ion is stored in the cathode through the electrolyte. When the battery supplies electricity, the ions return to the anode. Most of the time, the structure of each reaction in a lithium battery is cylindrical, and the two layers of the anode and cathode are wrapped with each other. If the structure is bent or folded, it will lead to the outermost layer farther and farther away from the innermost layer, and ultimately the positive and negative electrodes can not be associated, the battery capacity gradually dissipated.
In order to get a flexible battery, Panasonic researchers decided to abandon the design of cylindrical structure, not to let the positive and negative poles wrapped with each other, but directly stacked on a thin rectangular wafer electrode. Then, the battery is wrapped in a special malleable aluminum casing.
Another big challenge is how to charge the battery. The battery must be wireless charging, because do not want to in the design of Matsushita Battery light to the charging part (such as a USB socket) reserved space. Unfortunately, most of the wireless charging devices on the market is too large for small devices, Panasonic‘s flexible battery can only withstand 60 Ma charging current.
Finally, Panasonic designed its own wireless charging station, will be bundled with the battery sales. Yagi said, when applied to relatively simple devices (such as pedometer) when the battery, a charge can be used for 4 weeks. On the basis of the mass production of CG-064065 and its related devices, Yagi is exploring more possibilities: "we think there will be a lot of potential for such flexible batteries," he said."
