Mobile phone in the pocket to cars on the highway, almost everything as long as with a battery circuit needs to be. In the past few decades, although other plate technology industry rapid development, the battery is slow progress.

In today's transportation, energy, infrastructure and other fields, the battery shortage has become the biggest bottleneck. Our energy demand continues to increase, but we can carry, store energy is limited. Smartphones are difficult to life one day, the electric car charging a mileage than cars and diesel cars less, from the source (such as solar panels) energy storage is a very difficult thing.

We really need a breakthrough in energy storage, many companies are developing new technology, including the oil giant. When successful, it may form a huge market profits, unfortunately the battery chemistry has limitation, it is difficult to overcome.

The biggest problem is that the energy density: in a specific volume and how much weight can be stored in the storage unit of energy. Lithium battery for the first time in 1991, it has been used in mobile phones, cars and other rechargeable devices, per kilogram of about 150 and 250 watts can store electrical energy (Wh/kg). In order to better understand, we can analogy, a refrigerator consume 1600 watts of electricity, gasoline stored energy is about 13000 watts per kg - 50 times more than the best lithium-ion batteries.

And some batteries with metal or other elements to form a chemical reaction, such as sulfur or silicon, but researchers are difficult to improve the energy density, it is difficult to meet the safety requirements.

Imperial college, London, dyson engineering design institute, Wu (Billy Wu), said: "the more energy you loaded in the box, the higher the risk of it. Security is the key, thermal management is quite important. If the battery temperature over 80 degrees Celsius, the component will begin to decompose, may explode."

Consulting company Freedonia Group, dyson, tesla, samsung, panasonic, IBM recently made investigation of battery industry, predict the battery market in 2019 will reach $2019.

Tesla electric vehicle charging time can open 200-300 miles (about 322-483 - km), it also recently entered the family battery market. Through cooperation with panasonic, tesla "Gigafactory" factory invested $5 billion in construction. To electric cars to the mass market, mass production is a key factor of the battery. The existing tesla Model S pricing around 58300 pounds (about 555000 yuan), battery accounted for nearly one 5.

Many people think that 500 miles is a key point, or diesel car filled with a tank of gas and can open an average of about 500 miles (805 km). Starting in 2009, IBM's '500 Project Project in the development of lithium air batteries, its energy density is likely to reach the level of the petrol, but so far the commercial products are still missing.

Lithium air (oxygen) or lithium battery "breathing" oxygen from the air, to form a chemical reaction, generate electricity, the existing battery - lithium batteries, for example -- to oxide is stored in the internal battery. Because of this, the energy density of lithium air batteries will be greatly improved, and gasoline, theoretically lithium air batteries energy density is equivalent to 10 times the lithium battery.

Professor at the university of Texas Dallas Kyeongjae Cho believed that lithium air batteries have great hope. He said: "although many global group are actively research, hope that does not appear in real life, our study is an exciting progress." His research mainly focus on lithium air batteries electrolyte catalyst, compared with the traditional solid catalyst, using soluble catalyst can significantly improve performance. The discovery of Kyeongjae Cho said: "I hope we can make research back to life, for the future development of kinetic energy accumulation."

According to the report, Kyeongjae Cho battery costs and weighs only one 5 of the current batteries, lithium air batteries can make vehicle charging a drive 400 miles (644 km), keep the cell phone last week. But according to Kyeongjae, Cho said to increase the capacity of lithium air batteries in practice is a little difficult, although many large companies and universities are studying, but the result is far from satisfactory. So far, the battery is low efficiency, poor rate performance and instability, some problems such as excess chemical reaction.

Billy, wu said: "a lot of people are talking about metal air system, it has appeared on the horizon, but the distance from the commercial and more than 20 years."

Last October, dyson acquired Sakti3 company, it is an enterprise specialized research and development of solid-state batteries, the energy density of the solid state battery is lithium battery 2 times. Sakti3 use solid polymer as the electrolyte, charging speed can be accelerated.

In the consumption field, a lot of research around the energy supply. Billy, wu said: "the problems of a renewable energy, such as solar and wind energy, the energy is intermittent, sometimes bring good energy, sometimes interrupted, lest power grid load is too high."

The energy stored in batteries may be able to solve the supply problem. But for now, in a large battery or storage energy sources in the home also has limitation, and consumer electronics. All commercial battery company can do is to make good use of lithium battery batteries as soon as possible.

Battery technology breakthrough will come, but time is not yet fully mature.