Despite a few high-profile newsbreaks concerning overheating lithium batteries, the product is overall highly successful. Indeed, pundits believe that lithium ion will continue to dominate markets for years to come. It pays to explore ways to extend lithium battery life. This is especially as they are relatively expensive in terms of power output.
Factors that Shorten Lithium Battery Life
Lithium-ion batteries charge, and discharge by shuttling ions between the electrodes. They temporarily store them between layers of host material.
This event causes elevated temperatures. These combine with material aging to prevent the process continuing indefinitely. Manufacturers seldom promise more than 300 to 500 cycles.
This limitation of lithium battery life has important implications. In theory at least, a lithium-ion smartphone or laptop battery could deteriorate after twelve months. Replacements are expensive. We wrote this post to explain what we, as device owners can do to delay aging.
Factors that May Extend Lithium Battery Life
Heat generated during recycling is a major contributor to shorter lithium battery life. Hence, it makes sense not to operate devices in hot ambient conditions.
We also need to ensure air can circulate around them when resting on a surface. A cool laptop should definitely have a tendency towards a longer battery life.
Modern laptops run cooler, and have overcharging limiters. Therefore, it is unnecessary to disconnect them from the power grid. However you may do so when they stand idle for long periods. If you have the necessary skills, you could consider lowering the charging voltage and stressing the lithium-ion battery less.
More Posts about Lithium Battery Life Follow
We plan to go into more detail in future posts about the facts we touched on here. Replacement lithium batteries are expensive and discontinued models are difficult to source.
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