Battery Lamps

The manufacturer of lithium-ion has raised $ 45 million in a third round of financing. He also signed his contract deal making on the other hand, an agreement with GP Batteries China, thereby giving it the ability to multiply to one million batteries per month by the end of 2008. In all, Boston-Power has raised more than $ 68 million financing.

Hewlett-Packard plans to release a laptop sporting a Sonata battery in Boston this year, and other major PC makers are now in final testing phases with the Sonata, Boston-Power CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud said in an interview. (Last year, HP has always test the battery.)

Boston-Power has also hatched plans to move in making large format lithium-ion battery that can be used in plug-in hybrid cars. Sonata batteries for laptops today are based on cells of small size, and each cell has about 4.4 amp hours of power. Conventional notebook batteries provide about 2.6 amp hours. (Amp hours measure the amount of energy a battery can store.)

Plug-in hybrid batteries with cells that can provide 5 to 10 hours amps. Boston Power, in its labs, has come with batteries entering this range, but they are still experimental. (A battery for a plug-in will also contain cells much more typical six to nine laptop battery cells.)

"We have solved a fundamental problem for large cells," Lampe-Onnerud said. "We will take the time even to make sure it is refined for the market."

Boston-Power is one of a number of relatively new companies trying to improve the battery humble, particularly the now familiar lithium-ion batteries. A favorite manufacturers of laptop computers and consumer electronics, batteries lithium-ion batteries can hold more energy than competing types of batteries.

Unfortunately, they are also equipped with an obvious side effect. They are short, occasionally resulting in a "runaway thermal reaction" in the language of the industry. In simple terms, it is a fire or explosion. Remember in 2006 costing millions of dollars Sony.

Some companies have tinkered with the internal chemistry of batteries. Laptop batteries contain lithium cobalt. Altair Nanotechnologies and EnerDel have developed lithium-titanate, while others have found lithium potassium. The change in the chemical reduces the risk of explosions, but also reduces the energy density. low energy density leads directly to low mileage or run on laptops. Others seek to get rid completely of lithium and the transition to a rechargeable zinc.

In contrast, Boston-Power has largely kept the internal chemistry of the same and instead developed the other elements that comprise a battery. (Lampe-Onnerud and other members of the management team of Boston-Power has worked in industry in the lithium-ion batteries for years.) In the CAN, or outside the battery case, the Sonata is made of a metal alloy that is stronger than the iron cans used with conventional portable batteries and, therefore, remain intact in the event of a thermal reaction or fire, the company said.

Boston-Power has also spent considerable time on the interruption of the system, which encourages the battery shut down if there is danger of a thermal reaction. The Company can not guarantee that the batteries will never have problems, but added security features never seen in ordinary batteries.

In addition, Boston-Power works closely with its contract manufacturers, Lampe-Onnerud said, and has developed a process monitoring system which collects more detailed data about each battery as it involves the manufacture and assembly.

"Some factories still use very, very crude measures of quality," she said.

At the same time, the Sonata surpasses conventional batteries, the company said. It will be again.