Google is all about to improve lithium-ion and solid-state battery technology

Secret Google's X research lab is working under improvement of lithium-ion and solid-state batteries. Also, there is a high probability that Google will create their own type of the battery.

4/29/15 5:00 am chumakdenis 1

It seems that poor battery storage capacity is one of the biggest issues nowadays. Brightest minds all over the world are working under this problem and Google is not exclusion.

Google’s X research lab(group of four scientists that is led by Dr Ramesh Bhardwaj, a former Apple employee) has been working on a project to improve battery technology since 2012 and came up with a bunch of really interesting ideas --Dr. Bhardwaj has told that Google has at least 20! battery-dependent projects . 

The company’s latest self-driving car runs on batteries recharged by electricity. The first version of Google’s Glass Internet-connected eyewear suffered from short battery life, which the company hopes to improve. An effort to use nanoparticles to diagnose diseases relies on a small battery-powered monitoring device.

Not working alone

Google Inc. joins many technology companies trying to improve batteries, including Tesla Motors, Apple and International Business Machines Corp. These efforts have so far produced only incremental achievements, a contrast for tech companies accustomed to regular, dramatic leaps in the efficiency of semiconductors.

"Emerging battery technologies promise bigger gains. Solid-state, thin-film batteries transmit a current across a solid, rather than liquid, making them smaller and safer. Such batteries can be produced in thin, flexible layers, useful for EVs. But it isn’t clear whether they can be mass produced cheaply" - said Venkat Srinivasan, a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

Imroving Li-ion and solid-state batteries

Google's X research lab is trying to advance current lithium-ion and solid-state batteries.

In a February 2015 presentation to an industry conference, Dr. Bhardwaj described how solid-state, thin-film batteries could be used in smartphones and other mobile devices that are thinner, bendable, wearable and even implantable in the human body.

For a wearable device like Glass, he said, the batteries could help power energy-intensive features like video. For the contact lens, the technology is safer because it doesn’t use flammable electrolyte liquid, Dr. Bhardwaj’s presentation explained.

Other teams at Google are working with Chicago-based AllCell Technologies LLC on more potent batteries for four hardware projects, including Project Loon, the company’s effort to beam Internet signals from high-altitude balloons, people familiar with the matter said.

Well, good luck with that and let's hope that the comany will come up with the solutions that'll change our current view about electric vehicles (or at least our view about batteries for them).

*What do you think about Google's patents and ideas?Will their X research lab bring a real breakthrough?

Leave your comments on that in the comment section below.