Seeo, safer and longer lasting batteries

Traveling extensively around Europe the last couple of weeks I encountered an all too familiar problem: I was constantly running out of battery life be it for my shaver, cell phone, or laptop computer - there simply never was a power outlet available when needed. When it comes to electronic devices, one can either design a system that consumers less power or one can opt for a battery that can store more charge. The first one is being extensively done already, and in the shrinking world of electronic devices a larger battery is often times not an option. Further, with System on a Chip (SOC) designs integrating ever more functionality and components, any potential battery life gains due to low voltage operation are quickly cancelled out. To compound this problem, the current batch of rechargeable batteries looses significant capacity after only a few hundred recharge cycles. For the weary traveler what is needed are batteries with a higher density that loose less capacity over time. Luckily, there seems to be at least some hope on the horizon.

Earlier this year, we wrote about batteries that are to be composed entirely of liquids and for which the commercialization is expected within the next five years or so. On the exactly opposite side of the spectrum one can find a company called Seeo, a battery startup out of Berkeley, CA which is developing rechargeable lithium batteries utilizing a solid-state polymer electrolyte. Just a few days ago the company raised an additional $8.6 million in funding to bring the total funding to a little over $10 million. Seeo is being pretty stealthy regarding its technology and you won’t find anything but a simple messages on the company’s website informing you that the company is developing advanced materials that will revolutionize electricity storage and delivery. However, digging around the web yielded at little bit of information.

The technology Seeo is using was licensed by the company from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and is based on a nano-structured polymer electrolyte (NPE). Unlike current lithium-ion batteries the NPE based batteries being developed by Seeo have several advantages: They can be designed to resists dendrite growth which under certain circumstances can lead to shorts and potential explosions. They lack the highly flammable liquid electrolytes and are thus inherently safer than traditional lithium-ion batteries. NPE based batteries should also exhibit a significantly higher energy density over existing batteries. Finally, the batteries are expected to only loose about five percent of their capacity after a thousand cycles. On the downside, NPE batteries are expected to require a longer charge time than lithium-ion batteries. Even with this short coming there are likely to be plenty of products that will be able to take advantage of this new technology. And if nothing else, it is good to see that there is plenty of innovation happening on the battery front as well.