Will This New Canadian Battery Tech Be Goodenough?

Blame Canada For A Bonne Battery

Li-On batteries are great but they do have a disturbing habit of occasionally releasing all their stored energy in a split second, much to the detriment of anything near them.  This explosive nature is a hurdle for anyone trying to pack more power into a smaller form factor and has slowed the development of new battery technology.  This may change thanks in part to Dr. John Goodenough, who was one of the team that invented the rechargeable lithium-ion battery we know and love today. 

He and a team which includes Dr. Maria Helena Braga of the University of Porto, Portugal, as well as Hydro-Québec are developing a solid-state battery that uses lithium-glass as the electrolyte as opposed to the current liquid form. It will have a lithium or sodium metal anode that will produce the dendrites which current batteries suffer from.  They suggest the battery will not only be able to be charged in a matter of minutes but could be charged and discharged up to 23,000 times.  There are some doubters and detractors just like there were in the 80’s and 90’s when the original Li-On batteries were being developed, which you can read about over at The Register.