For years, we have been promised exciting new battery technologies that claim to dramatically increase battery life, and none of them seem to materialize. But a new Apple patent application describes a simple way to achieve a valuable increase in battery life with nothing more high-tech than a metal case.
The invention is a little ironic, as it solves a problem that Apple originally created in 2015 with the 12-inch MacBook batteries, before later adopting the same technology in the rest of the MacBook line…
On the 12-inch MacBook, Apple swapped rigid rectangular batteries for pouches that can be shaped to fit in the space available. At the time, the company considered this an innovative technology, as it allowed the batteries to occupy all the free space inside the machine.
This offers a lot of flexibility, but the approach also creates problems, as Apple explains.
Lithium polymer batteries are commonly used as rechargeable batteries to power a variety of electronic devices, including laptops, tablets, cell phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), digital music players and cordless power tools. Lithium polymer batteries can often include electrodes and electrolytes sealed in an aluminum foil pouch. These batteries can be used in space-restricted portable electronic devices, such as cell phones, laptops and / or wearable devices.
The sealed edges of the bag’s battery may result in excess bag material and the bag may have a positive voltage that requires the outer surface of the bag to be isolated from conductive surfaces on the electronic device. To accommodate excess bag material and isolate the conductive surface of the bag’s battery, the bag’s battery needs to be smaller than the area provided on the electronic device, resulting in wasted space. This is especially important in space-restricted portable electronic devices, where space is at a premium and devices are commonly designed to accommodate the largest possible batteries.
To solve this, Apple proposes to stick to the irregular shapes that allow the batteries to take full advantage of the space, but to exchange a soft bag for a hard metal case.
This disclosure describes several modalities that refer to an improved battery to reduce the space between the battery and the electronic components in an electronic device. In some embodiments, a battery may include contact components from a rigid or semi-rigid compartment in an electronic device.
For example, in some embodiments, the battery includes an electrode and a cathode surrounded by a metal shell. The battery can be sized to optimize the space available on the electronic device without the need for spacing between the battery compartment and other components on the electronic device. In some embodiments, the metal compartment can be connected to a common ground to allow other components to come into contact with the battery compartment without causing a short circuit or corroding the components.
In addition, the metal casing can be used as a structural element in the electronic device. For example, the brackets can be attached to the metal housing or a flange between two parts of the housing can be used as a fixing point.
That way, we would get the best of both worlds.
In principle, this would allow you to increase the capacity of the battery without increasing the thickness of the MacBook. However, being Apple, it can be suspected that the company will take the opposite approach and maintain existing battery capacity while making laptops thinner …
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