Posted 05/22/09 at 04:56:42 PM by Andy Salisbury

Earlier this week Hitachi Ltd. and Hitachi Vehicle Energy Ltd. announced a new battery that they claim has the world’s highest power density.

The new lithium-ion battery has 4,500W/kg power density, a number that clocks in at about 1.7 times the output of their current batteries. The increase in power allows for smaller size, and is thanks to a new manganese cathode and a unique battery structure. The structure employs thinner electrodes, a new power collection method, and more effective configurations.

Hitachi plans to make this technology available for notebooks and cell phones once the automotive industries have had a chance with it, but there’s no official word as to when we could see this technology implemented on a grand scale.

Read More