Panasonic Develops Battery That Won't Overheat

"New battery a welcome addition to the market after recall costs laptop manufacturers millions" says a PC-World article by: Martyn Williams.

This is great news to those of us with a healthy fear of experiencing a "Dell Bomb" exploding laptop first hand (see photo from Japan).

Panasonic said it has developed a lithium-ion battery that won't overheat even if a short circuit occurs.

The new battery includes a heat-resistive insulator inside the battery cell, next to an existing separator that insulates the anode and cathode. If that separator is punctured a short circuit occurs that typically causes the battery to overheat and in some circumstances catch fire. Panasonic said its insulation layer ensures that the battery won't overheat even in the event of a short circuit.

Panasonic's announcement responds to consumers' concern about the safety of lithium-ion batteries following a number of incidents involving them.

You can read the full PC-World article here, and there is a similar article with different background information on arstechnica.com entitled Safer laptop battery developed by Matsushita

Hopefully this technological advance will lead to safer batteries for our PDAs too!