Lithium polymer batteries use lithium as an active ingredient. Lithium is a volatile material, but the lithium in these batteries isn't packed into cells as it is in lithium ion batteries. Instead, it is contained in a polymer gel. These gel batteries can't provide the same sort of energy density as lithium ion batteries, but that's now a plus.More details at ZD Net.
Manufacturers, and in particular Sony, have pushed the energy density (or capacity) of lithium ion batteries. When an internal short occurs, it can set off a chain reaction and start a fire. Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Apple Computer and others, in conjunction with Sony, have offered to take back millions of lithium ion batteries shipped with particular notebooks in the past two years.
Future notebook batteries to be lithium polymer
Posted on Tuesday, December 12 2006 @ 11:33 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Notebook makers will likely start using lithium polymer batteries instead of lithium ion batteries: