Toshiba Bows 1-Min. Rechargeable Li-Ion

Tokyo— Toshiba announced earlier this spring what the company calls a breakthrough in lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries that makes long recharge times a thing of the past.

Toshiba said its new battery — which is a recent result of company research, not yet ready for commercial use — can recharge 80 percent of a cell's energy capacity in only one minute. This is approximately 60 times faster than the typical Li-ion batteries in wide use today, the maker said, noting that current Li-ion cells take one to four hours to recharge to 80 percent capacity.

Toshiba will bring its new rechargeable battery to commercial products in 2006, it said. Initial applications will be in the automotive and industrial sectors.

In releasing major specifications of the new battery, Toshiba heralded the cell's excellent recharge performance, with the thin battery's total recharge taking only a few more minutes after the one-minute 80 percent recharge.

The high-energy-density battery is small and light, and offers a high level of storage efficiency.

It features a long life cycle, emphasized when a prototype laminated 600mAh Li-ion cell — discharged and fully recharged 1,000 times at a temperature of 25 degrees centigrade — loses only 1 percent of capacity during the test.