As I mentioned a few days ago, breakthroughs in battery technology always seem to be two years away, but there have been some modest but meaningful developments.
One of these, silicon-carbon batteries, is already found in some Android brands, and battery-test results clearly show the benefits. But experts say it will take some time for Apple to adopt the new battery chemistry in future iPhones…
There is an arms race going on between battery capacities and smartphone features. Batteries have been becoming more efficient over the years, but at the same time those gains have been swallowed up by the increasing power demands of bigger and brighter screens, more powerful processors, etc.
While most improvements in battery technology have been incremental, some of the latest Android phones have switched to a new battery chemistry that represents a step change in capacity. CNET Note that Chinese brands like Honor, Huawei, and Oppo are switching from lithium-ion batteries to silicon-carbon batteries, which offer significantly higher energy density and faster charging.
Silicon-carbon batteries are not an entirely new type of battery, but rather a next-generation version of lithium-ion technology. Simply put, instead of using graphite in the battery’s anode, manufacturers incorporate a silicon-carbon composite. Because silicon can hold more lithium than graphite, this design allows higher energy density (…) In CNET’s lab testing, nearly half of the phones with the best battery life used silicon-carbon technology.
This technology has not yet been adopted by Apple, Samsung or Google, and experts say that’s because it is too new to have the proven reliability demanded by major brands.
Progress needs to be validated in millions of units to avoid unexpected failures, safety concerns and large-scale performance issues, says Paul Braun, director of the Materials Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Reliability and longevity are more important in premium smartphones that people keep for longer periods of time, and that’s why it may be another year or three before we see a silicon carbon battery powering an iPhone.
image: I fix it
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