Almost every one of us has at least one (and often too many) electronic devices that are powered by batteries. If they're recent and rechargeable, they're likely powered by lithium ion batteries.

The problem with lithium ion batteries, as with most rechargeable battery technologies before it, is that they take quite a long time to recharge, requiring that we do a constant "battery charging dance" to assure that all of our devices have the power they need when we need them.

This wouldn't be too bad if each of us carried only a single device, but with a typical complement of notebooks and cell phones and music players and..., keeping all the batteries charged, each requiring different chargers and more electric outlets than are available in any hotel room (and in most homes or offices!) becomes a real pain. Let's see — when I travel I have to carry chargers for my notebook, cell phone, GPS device, PDA, MP3 player, and more. Sheesh!

Suppose, though, that we could fully charge our batteries in — ten minutes!

That's just what Toshiba promises to have on the market in 2006! It works like this — one of the reasons that current lithium ion batteries have to be charged relatively slowly is that the liquid electrolyte and the construction of the anodes impede the flow of the lithium ions as they make their way to recharge the chemistry that powers the battery. According to an April 4, 2004 article in TechNewsWorld, the liquid electrolyte also gets unstable if too many lithium ions are pushed through it too fast. Hence the need for slow charging.

But Toshiba has changed that equation by using nano-sized particles, which have a vastly larger surface area, for the negative electrode. This "nano electrode" is able to absorb the lithium passing into it during the recharge cycle far faster than a solid electrode can, allowing an incredible charge rate to 80% of capacity in one minute! A full charge takes just 8 minutes more! To get an idea of why nanoparticles, filling the same space as typically larger particles, have a much greater surface (active) area, imagine if you were measuring a specific section of a coastline.

One way to do this would be to drive down a paved road that parallels the beach, which in this case measures exactly one mile. But suppose that you had an accurate pedometer (which measures the distance you walk) and you walked along the edge of this section of the beach, curving in and out as you followed the beach contours — this way you'd measure a distance that is longer than the one mile measured along the straight road.

Similarly, if you could follow the outline of each grain of sand at the edge of the beach, the vastly greater number of turns and twists along the outside of these particles would measure yet a FAR greater distance.

This is why using nanoparticles in the battery, or for many other uses, provides a far larger reactive surface area than larger (traditional) particles.

Other improvements from using this technology include raising the number of times that the battery can be charged from a few hundred times (did you ever wonder why you need a new notebook battery every year or so?), to 1,000 times. Yet even with this number of recharges, the battery will lose only 1% of its capacity. Oh - these new batteries are also said to have a higher energy-density, for a given size and weight, than current batteries.

Additionally, this battery is extremely forgiving temperature-wise, providing 80% of its capacity at -40 degrees F, and 95% of capacity at 113 degrees F. Although most of us don't use our portable electronic devices at such cold temperatures, I have been in the Arizona desert when the air temperature exceeded 120 degrees. But even in more normal summer temperatures something left out in the sun can get far hotter. This enhanced temperature range will be VERY important since Toshiba expects these batteries will initially power future electric-only and hybrid cars, plus other industrial devices such as locomotives, all of which obviously must work in extreme temperatures.

Also, the higher capacity and lightening-fast recharge rate could change the rules for electric-only cars — imagine restoring an electric car's full charge in ten minutes when you pull into a "gas station" and grab a doughnut. This could get around the current far-too-long charging times that severely limit the practical range of electric-only vehicles. Hopefully, these batteries will soon trickle down into our pockets and purses and briefcases...