New Battery Technology Will Ensure Your Smartphone Will Never Explode Or Catch Fire In Future

Lithium-ion batteries are the power cells of choice for smartphones (and most other gadgets these days), because of how small they can be made and the fact they're rechargeable. But as exploding smartphones taught us, they're not always the safest option.

Now, researchers from Columbia University's engineering team say they've uncovered a method to stabilize the electrolytes in these batteries to make them safer. Basically, they may have developed effective solid-state batteries.

The team used a boron nitride nano-coating to make lithium-ion batteries that they say offer up to 10 times the charge capacity of current day cells. More importantly, they're also non-flammable. Oh if only the Galaxy Note 7 could have had this technology.

These kinds of batteries have been designed before, but previous methods have generally been too expensive to adopt for mass production. On the other hand, this coating is the thinnest ever, only about 5-10nm thick. That means these batteries aren't lowered in their charge capacity, and can in fact be improved in both output and life span.

With this sort of battery you'd get about 2 to 10 times the energy density of previous power cells, up to six times faster charging, and life cycles of closer to 10 years instead of the current two, aside from non-flammability.

Now all we need is for the technology to be perfected so we can start getting smartphones with much longer battery life.