The new EU Battery Directive with effect from September

The EU announced in March this year, amendments to the battery directive (2006/66/EC “batteries, batteries, waste batteries and waste batteries directive”) to provide for September 26, 2008 prior to the Directive the Member States into national laws and repeal the existing section No. 91/157/EEC, “containing certain dangerous substances and cells and batteries” command. 

The new Batteries Directive pay special attention to the following points: first addition to the amount of mercury does not exceed 2% of button batteries, the EU should ban all mercury-containing more than 0.0005% total weight of the batteries or battery; Second, except for emergency or warning systems, medical equipment or power tools herein shall prohibit all contain cadmium than 0.002% of the total weight of portable batteries or batteries; third is to ask the producers to the establishment of waste batteries and waste battery handling recovery mechanism; 4 is a directive to cover all types of batteries and accumulators, regardless of their shape, size, size, material composition and scope of use. But the September 26, 2008 prior to entering the EU directive from the jurisdiction of the battery without having to re-exit the market.

Apart from the EU, countries continue to put forward a new battery of environmental standards, and gradually tightened cadmium, mercury and other harmful substances content, look at such standard-setting process in the green can be seen, hidden security risks because of the battery will gradually lose their competitiveness has been out of the market.

China is a big battery export countries, exports to the EU each year the battery more than 1 billion, while exports of Ningbo is an important base for the battery and the annual export the battery about 3 billion, of which exports to the EU accounted for 3 percent or so. The EU’s new batteries will be China’s exports to the EU Battery Directive will result in some pressure on some of the weakness of technology for SMEs, but also a cruel barrier. Therefore, the inspection and quarantine experts caution businesses, laws and regulations approximation, domestic enterprises must take active steps to prepare, we must continuously strengthen the enterprise’s own production of technical standards, to ensure the safety of raw materials in the upgrading of technical skill to make enough effort to improve the battery products in the on the international market competitiveness; addition, we must note that the battery label and labeling problems, it fully displays the information necessary to meet the importing country requirements.

Japan Electric Start lithium-ion rechargeable battery cathode materials for new plant

Japan Electric announced that production of lithium-ion rechargeable battery cathode materials, new plant has been completed. A capacity of 2000 tons. Production is currently being tested and will be the spring of 2010 to full volume production.

The company mainly produces manganese (Mn) cathode materials category. Mn type cathode materials with spinel (Spinel) structure, and therefore charging excessive, the crystallization of decay is rarely, security is high. The company’s existing plant for the production of cathode material for the main electric power supply of bicycles and electric tools, but for the growing market for automotive use, so the new factory will be mainly for the cathode material for electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid vehicle (HEV) supply. The new plant is located in Fuji County, Takaoka. Building area of 2000m2.

Japan is not open for electrical supply of the battery cathode material into the vehicle manufacturers and vendors. The company said Nissan and NEC Group will contribute the AESC (Automotive Energy Supply) is using Mn type cathode materials, and plans to market in autumn 2010, the “Fuga hybrid” and the 2010 annual listing of EV “Leaf” on the use of battery  .

CNPV with the German company CTS Solar GmbH signed a long-term strategic partnership agreement

A leading integrated manufacturer of solar photovoltaic products CNPV Solar Power SA in silicon ingots, wafers and photovoltaic battery production and assembly of components, design, manufacture and supply of highly efficient crystalline solar PV modules economy. The company today announced it has engaged in the roof and ground power plant project development, installation and distribution of southern Germany’s leading solar energy company CTS Solar GmbH to achieve a long-term strategic partner distribution agreement. Under the strategic agreement, CNPV will be held during the period from 2010 to 2012 the supply of the CTS Solar total 20MWp of PV modules, which in 2010 is expected to deliver 4MWp. The remaining 6MWp and 10MWp were planned for delivery in 2011 and 2012.

CNPV CEO Mr. Zhang Shunfu and CNPV COO, CTO and Board of Directors B. Veerraju Chaudary, said: “We are very pleased to announce that with the CTS Solar establishment of a new strategic partnership to further consolidate the existing good with the CTS Solar partnership. CTS Solar with our strategic partnership is a major success of our side, so that our own with those in developed and emerging PV market has recognized the growing opportunities for developers of multi-regional energy alliance. This the new contract will provide our development in Germany, the Czech Republic and Turkey markets, new projects such as solar energy to provide effective help. We look forward to providing high-quality components, high-quality service and a low-cost industry-leading platform from which to continue to expand and We are loyal partner CTS Solar strategic partnership. ”

CTS Solar CEO CLause Romankiewicz Mr. and CTS Solar Sales Director, Mr. Eric Lechelt, commented: “From southern Germany, CTS Solar GmbH In order to achieve this with the CNPV a new strategic marketing agreement proud of it. We think this is our CNPV a good relationship with the battery continuation of our projects can use their high-quality components to our customers in Germany and Austria to provide CNPV quality services. “

Future of netbooks and laptops

While many eyes are on E3, Taiwan’s Computex conference is more quietly generating some interesting news on the future of Netbooks and laptops that will eventually make their way stateside. For a peek into the crystal ball of mobile computing, let’s take a look at what’s been announced in Taipei, Taiwan, this week.

Mobile-phone-based Netbooks are growing: “Smartbooks,” as they’re being called by companies like Qualcomm, seem to be this year’s Netbook. It’s mostly a naming convention shift: ARM processors based on smartphone chips, like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, were demoed on Asus Eee PC Netbooks–running Android, no less. While Snapdragon competitor Freescale Semiconductor, who makes an ARM-based iMX515 processor, predicts hybrid Smartbooks that will look like tablets, others see them being even more portable Netbooks.

Regardless of the processor, companies are finally announcing the release of honest-to-goodness Android Netbooks, running a laptop-based version of the Google-created smartphone OS, later this year. Acer took the leap by confirming their release of Android Netbooks by the third quarter of this year, suddenly accelerating the “Android on Netbooks” argument we’ve been having on CNET. Is Android really a better OS solution? The point may be moot for laptop manufacturers such as Acer who are also entering the smartphone space, and are mostly likely interested in targeting Google for an across-the-board mobile OS option on their future devices. According to Acer, “a majority” of their Netbooks will run Android as an alternative to Windows.

Where does this leave Linux, then? In a tough place. Linux’s relatively brandless environment has been a challenge in an app-store world, although this week’s RealNetworks’ announcement of RealPlayer being preinstalled on Linux Netbooks and Instant-On OS platforms is a big step for Ubuntu being able to keep up with the easy media-playing capability of Netbook machines, and adds some brand recognition and codec consolidation. Shown at Computex were several Moblin Linux-based Netbook prototypes, as well the announcement of Ubuntu Moblin Remix, the next graphical interface evolution beyond Ubuntu and a possible candidate for an OS specifically geared towards ultramobile PCs such as Netbooks.

Future technology for screens, touch pads: Regardless of whether Apple gets into the Netbook space, Windows Netbooks are heading toward MacBook-like touch pad interfaces. Synaptics’ ClickPad version of their next multitouchpad was shown off this week, being targeted mainly at future Netbooks with smaller keyboard areas. Finding a way to fit buttons into small Netbook frames has been a challenge, and going button-free would also allow the touch pad to be made even larger. Whether Windows 7 supports the ClickPad as well as Apple supports their MacBook single-button multitouchpad remains to be seen. And, taking a page from the easy-to-read reflective e-ink screens of e-readers, Pixel Qi demonstrated a highly reflective LCD screen on an Acer Netbook that can be used in daylight with no backlighting. The hybrid screen can switch between e-readeresque and full-colored brightly backlit states for battery conservation.

Intel, Microsoft ready to leave Netbooks behind? As Intel continues supporting their Core 2 Duo-equivalent CULV energy-efficient mobile processors, the focus on Atom seems to be waning. That’s not the case, according to Intel, especially with new Atom processors on the horizon, but the market’s getting crowded fast. Microsoft has also said that they’d rather not use the Netbook name anymore, choosing “low cost small notebook PC” instead. As ULV and CULV processors take over the mobile Centrino space to create lower-cost, thinner laptops, and smartphone-evolved ARM processors begin to chip away at the Atom-based Netbook category, the days of Netbooks as we knew them may already be numbered.

Air Force 500 million RMB of investment in long-zinc-air battery industry

Air Force 500 million yuan of investment in long-zinc-air battery industry Published :2010-3-11 Source: First Financial Daily recently, China Aviation Industry Corporation (hereinafter referred to as “China Aviation Industry”) announced that the long edge with Beijing United Energy Technology Co., Ltd. set up jointly by the Air Force chief of United Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “the Air Force chief”), and the Beijing Research Center of zinc-air battery. The next three years, the Air Force will spend 500 million yuan long to promote Beijing’s zinc-air battery industrialization.

The next three years, the Air Force long 500 million yuan will be invested to realize the industrialization of zinc-air battery. Company’s 2011 planned output of 100 electric bus batteries, while adding 300 sanitation electric vehicle batteries, in the municipal sanitation system is running. In 2012 plans to produce 500 electric bus batteries, 500 battery-electric sanitation vehicles. In 2013 to achieve large-scale production of zinc-air battery, reaching an annual output of 1000 electric bus batteries, 1000 battery electric vehicles the size of sanitation.

Gou Zhongwen, vice mayor of Beijing, said Beijing as a new energy vehicles 10 City 1000 car scheme pilot cities, has a better internal environment and the development of new energy vehicles industrial base, the investment in Beijing a long edge, the implementation of new energy car project, Beijing’s new energy industry of the elongated chain, optimize the adjustment of new energy vehicles structure of great significance.

2010, Beijing will be arranged five electric buses and sanitation trucks to run the tests, and the other arrangements for 50 electric buses and sanitation trucks batteries into Beijing public transportation and sanitation systems of the trial.

A questions of lithium ion battery

PC components have grown more efficient, but then powerful graphics chips eat up the energy savings. Hard drives with moving parts are gradually handing over tasks to flash memory, but then faster Wi-Fi chips cause the battery meter to plunge.

After years of addressing the demand to lower power consumption in notebooks, it’s time to point fingers at the supply: the lithium ion battery.

Manufacturers have been pushing lithium ion to its limits in recent years. The result of that push has included slightly longer battery charges–and safety disasters, such as the massive recall of Sony batteries in 2006.

“Some of the problems you see in the industry are (partly from) the need to over-engineer the system and having huge cost pressure,” said Christina Lampe-Onnerud, founder and CEO of Boston Power, a battery developer.

Lithium ion technology was considered a fantastic solution when it was introduced commercially in the early 1990s. But there’s no more room for improvement without pushing the envelope of cost and safety, Lampe-Onnerud said.

New materials
As a result, battery manufacturers have been experimenting with new materials, which could offer major breakthroughs–and lead to the unintended consequence of making life a little more difficult for notebook vendors.

For example, Panasonic, one of the three major battery vendors along with Sanyo and Sony, has developed a new battery cell that can hold more of a charge than the standard cell. (A standard lithium ion battery holds six cells.)

Panasonic doesn’t discuss the materials being used to build that cell, but it is one of many companies investigating the use of metals other than lithium, such as nickel and manganese, on the cathode of the battery, said Andy Keaths, power sources enabling manager at Intel.

Right now, Panasonic is using those new cells in batteries only for its own notebooks. But one day, it could license that technology to other manufacturers, which might also come up with their own new materials for both the cathode and anode of a battery. Intel is also looking at alternative metals and power sources over time, with investments in companies such as Zinc Matrix Power.

Those alternative metals present problems of their own, however, because they can require slightly different charging voltages and can add cost to the battery, said John Wozniak, who holds the title of distinguished technologist in Hewlett-Packard’s notebook engineering group. It can also take awhile to introduce new, unproven materials.

“Right now, when I see road maps that say we’re going to have this capacity at this time, I plan for something like six months after that,” Wozniak said.

Working with what’s there
Barry Huret, president of battery consulting firm Huret Associates, isn’t quite so pessimistic about the future of lithium ion battery technology.

“They just have to get what they are using under the best control,” he said.

In that vein, instead of focusing on extending battery life, Boston Power is working on designs that improve reliability, performance and safety of lithium ion technology. For example, the company wants to create a battery that doesn’t lose its charge capacity over time, as opposed to current batteries that become more impotent as time passes.

This could be a big selling point for HP’s enterprise customers, which currently buy three-year warranties on notebooks but are only entitled to one-year warranties on batteries, Wozniak said. If customers must live with small increases in battery life, perhaps they’ll respond to other selling points when it comes to batteries.

“If I can’t get all-day runtime, maybe I can do a fast charge at lunch,” he said.

Better Place plans to open battery-swap stations in Israel and Denmark

YOKOHAMA, Japan–As the mock-up electric Nissan Dualis crossover halts over the service bay, two robotic shuttles immediately start scurrying below.

One latches onto the underside of the Dualis, swiftly pulling out a spent battery pack. The other then lifts a fully charged pack into place. A green light, and away the driver goes. All in under a minute.

Welcome to the future of electric vehicles, as seen by Better Place. The Palo Alto, Calif., company aims to build an international network of battery-swap stations for electric vehicles.

The battery swap system, which made its global debut in concept form here, hopes to brush aside a major barrier to electrics: their high price.

Instead of paying thousands extra for a car because of its lithium ion battery, customers would pay piecemeal to use a battery supplied by Better Place. When the battery runs low, drivers switch it for a fully juiced one.

The business plan looks more to mobile phones than to gas stations. Customers can pay for every mile they drive or buy a fixed-rate plan that allows unlimited miles and battery swaps.

Better Place plans to open battery-swap stations in Israel and Denmark sometime next year, and in California and Hawaii six to nine months later. The company will provide swap-and-go batteries for electric vehicles from Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA.

Last week, Nissan said it will start making electric vehicles in Japan at its Oppama plant in the fall of 2010. Initial capacity will be 50,000 cars.

“In 2011, what you’ll see is on the magnitude of tens of thousands” of the battery packs, Better Place founder and CEO Shai Agassi told Automotive News. “At 2013, you’ll be at hundreds of thousands.” He reckons each station will cost $500,000.

But the battery-swap system faces its own hurdles. Unlike gas tanks, which can go almost anywhere on a car, batteries must be under the floorboard in the middle of the car for the robots to make the swap.

After the spent batteries are removed, they are recharged in 20 minutes. Refrigeration keeps the batteries cool and prevents damage during the high-voltage charging. But repeated quick charges degrade battery life.

While Nissan and Renault are Better Place’s only partners so far–hardly enough to gain critical mass–Agassi said he was in talks with other automakers.

“We were in serious discussions with 10 companies,” he said. “The main reason we haven’t seen other car markets move is we caught them in the worst 18 months of the history of the car industry. And during that time, most car companies scaled back research and development.”Sony VGP-BPS10，Sony VGP-BPS10A，Sony VGP-BPS10A/B.

Battery Technology’s development

As anyone who reads this blog is well aware, we’re a bit obsessed with battery life around here.  And with good reason!  One of the things anyone who uses mobile technology wants most is more time away from the plug and the outlet.  After all, it is supposed to be mobile.

Manufacturers are creeping toward 8 hours of actual battery life (slowly), but they are doing so with batteries that haven’t changed much for decades.  And, let’s face it, there’s only so much hardware and software can do.  What we really need are battery cells that last longer.

Happily, that may be on the horizon.
From CrunchGear:

Researchers in South Korea, led by one Prof. Cho Jae-phil at the Hanyang University, have developed a new type of lithium battery that lasts as long as eight times as long as traditional lithium batteries. So, for example, your laptop that gets five hours of battery life all of a sudden gets 35 hours of battery life.

As CG points out, this is still in development, so it could be a few years before consumers get the benefit.  Still, it might benefit laptop and other mobile manufacturers to throw some R&D money at this to help it along.  The first company to bring out an ultraportable that gets 30 hours of battery yet is still light and not bulky will be in for some serious bank.

Lenovo on Thursday voluntarily recalled select Sanyo Electric lithium ion extended-life batteries used in its ThinkPad notebook computers

“Consumers should stop using the recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed,” the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said in its recall announcement. Lenovo is offering a free replacement battery.

The recall affects 9-cell batteries with the part number FRU P/N 92P1131. They were sold between November 2005 and February 2007 as an accessory for about $180.

The recalled devices were used in ThinkPad notebook models: R60, R60e, T60, T60p, Z60m, Z61e, Z61m and Z61p. About 100,000 of the recalled Sanyo Electric battery packs were sold in the U.S., with 105,000 more sold worldwide.

The defect is not with the internal battery cell, according to the CPSC statement. A blow to the corner of the laptop while the battery is installed, which might occur if the device is dropped, can result in overheating. Lenovo received four reports of “batteries overheating and damaging the notebook,” according to the recall notice.

Consumers can check Lenovo’s battery recall announcement for more information or call Lenovo at (800) 426-7378 anytime to determine if they have a defective battery.

In September, Lenovo also recalled a series of Sony batteries used in ThinkPad computers.

Chips based on the Arm design are finding their way into commercial laptops

After comfortably residing for years in mobile devices like cell phones, chips based on the Arm design are finding their way into commercial laptops.

However, Arm processors could be relegated to co-processor status alongside Intel CPUs in commercial laptops unless the chips are able to run full-featured, Windows-based PC applications, analysts said.

Though Arm can run multiple flavors of Linux and the Windows Embedded CE platform, Microsoft has said its upcoming Windows 7 OS would not support the Arm architecture. Microsoft said Arm is suited for specialized devices like smartphones and e-readers. As such, only the mobile version of Windows has been ported to the Arm architecture.

Nevertheless, Dell’s move on Tuesday to use Arm chips in its latest business offering, the Latitude Z, raises the possibility of the processor architecture being used in more laptops.The Arm processor is a secondary CPU that sits alongside an Intel low-voltage CPU intended to run Windows-based applications. Dell is also offering Arm CPUs as an option with its ultraportable Latitude E4300 and E4200 business laptops.

The PC maker decided to use Arm processors because they add a smartphone element to the laptops, said Steve Belt, vice president of business client engineering at Dell.

The Latitude Z has a special motherboard with an Arm-based chip on it, which is designed to run the quick-boot capability called Latitude On. In addition to booting in just a few seconds, Latitude On gives the laptop “always-on” capabilities similar to those in smartphones. The environment provides quick access to commonly used applications such as e-mail clients, contacts, calendar and a Web browser. The feature helps avoid the longer boot times that versions of Microsoft’s Windows OS undergo to run such applications.

Arm designs processor cores that are licensed to chip makers. The processors can be found in billions of mobile devices and are making their way into low-power devices such as netbooks. Arm recently boosted the speed of its processor cores to reach 2GHz in an attempt to show that the processors are scalable and provide the performance needed to run demanding applications like multimedia.

However, it was the power-saving feature of the Arm processors that attracted Dell to use the chip in Latitude Z, Belt said. The PC maker is placing the Arm at the heart of the quick-boot environment, as it consumes much less battery life compared to Intel processors, Belt said.

“Here you get a great power-management story. That’s how you get an instant-on story, because I have the power to burn,” Belt said. The future of Arm CPUs in Dell laptops is partly tied to how customers respond to the quick-boot feature, Belt said.

“A lot of that is going to be driven by the acceptance of what we’ve built here. If we see people really like this and use it, trust me, I’m super-excited about this capability. But I’m not going to spend time building things people don’t want, either,” Belt said.

Many vendors have talked about including Arm processors in PCs. Asustek Computer, for example, has shown a laptop with Arm and Intel processors running in tandem.

Dell’s laptop is a step in the right direction for Arm, which is trying to establish a larger presence beyond the smartphone space, said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates.

However, Arm may struggle to replace Intel CPUs as the main processors in laptops, since the PC version of Windows has not been ported to the Arm architecture, Gold said. Most fully functional laptops today ship with Intel CPUs and a version of the Windows OS.

Software is more important than hardware in commercial laptops, said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group. But Arm chips could work in laptops if there is a move toward Web applications and adoption of the Linux OS grows.

Arm processors are already being used as an alternative to Intel CPUs in small, low-cost laptops based on the Linux OS. Those devices are designed mainly for people who do most of their computing on the Internet. Chip companies like Freescale and Qualcomm are expected to deliver chips for such devices, which they call “smartbooks,” based on the Arm architecture.

Still, Windows 7 needs to be ported to Arm to get more consideration from PC makers as a replacement for Intel CPUs, Gold said.

“Dell has essentially relegated Arm to a co-processor,” Gold said. “I can’t see Arm replacing Intel or Advanced Micro Devices — x86 architecture — in notebooks. Arm will run Linux so in netbooks it makes sense,” he said.

Laptop makers may continue to adopt Arm CPUs as co-processors to run specific functions like scanning Internet data for malware and viruses, Gold said. The power-saving capabilities and low cost of Arm chips make them a good choice as co-processors.