Japanese company eyes 10X boost in smartphone battery life

Shin-Etsu Chemical thinks new material it has developed could boost battery life by tenfold.

The new development is said to replace traditional carbon-based material in lithium-ion batteries with silicon, according to a report in the


Japanese-language version of Nikkei - which didn't provide much detail about the technology.


Though the cost is higher than carbon-based materials, the expected tenfold increase in battery life would - theoretically - effectively obviate the need to frequently re-charge smartphones, Nikkei said.

The material would have applications to electric car batteries too.


Shin-Etsu has begun shipping samples to domestic and foreign battery makers and plans to have a facility for trial manufacturing of the material by 2014.


Commercial mass production is targeted in three to four years.