Moltech Corp of Shoreham, New York, hopes to alleviate the problems of short-life batteries for equipment such as laptop computers – but not before 1993 or 1994, reports Microbytes Daily: the company is in the initial stages of developing thin-film batteries based on solid conducting polymer electrolytes instead of the liquid electrolytes used in most batteries today; the solid polymer batteries will be based on anionic group elements – Vanadium Oxide or Titanium Sulphide attached to a polymer backbone, and promise five times greater power storage capacity per weight or volume over current batteries, a charge/discharge life of more than 1,500 cycles against 200 or so on current batteries, and will retain power much longer, losing only 1% of their power capacity per month where conventional batteries lose up to 30% per month while in use; they will also be made as polymer sheets, making it easy to shape the battery to the application for which it is intended to be used.
