Samsung Wants to Double Battery Life on Future Smartphones

Samsung Wants to Double Battery Life on Future Smartphones

Does your Galaxy S6 run out of juice too quickly? Samsung may have a solution.

The Korean tech giant's scientists have reportedly developed a new lithium-ion battery, which is said to offer double the power of current models. This means the company's future smartphones may hold their charge for twice as long as today's handsets.

Samsung unveiled the new technology in a report published last week in the science journal Nature Communications.

How does it work? As reported by Engadget, the battery uses a silicon anode — which offers more capacity than a traditional battery — with layers of graphene on top "to improve the density and longevity that would otherwise suffer."

"The graphene layers anchored onto the silicon surface accommodate the volume expansion of silicon via a sliding process between adjacent graphene layers," Samsung's report notes. "When paired with a commercial lithium cobalt oxide cathode, the silicon carbide-free graphene coating allows the full cell to reach volumetric energy densities of 972 and 700 Wh l−1 at first and 200th cycle, respectively, 1.8 and 1.5 times higher than those of current commercial lithium-ion batteries."

The technology is now pending patent approval in the U.S., Europe, China, and Korea, according to a report from The Korea Times.

A separate report from Korea Times, meanwhile, said that LG is also working on a new battery technology for smartwatches. It's hexagonal and could improve storage capacity by 25 percent.

But don't expect to see it in Samsung's next flagship handset just yet. Given that this is still a research project, it could be years before the technology actually makes its way to market. Samsung reportedly expects to start using it in smartphones within the next three years.