While mobile technology has moved at an incredible pace, anyone with a notebook knows that battery life is still a major constraint when working on the road. Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory, however, have reached an important milestone in this department by developing batteries that are both safer and longer lived, while increasing their capacity to store energy by 30 percent.

To achieve this extra power while preventing overheating and combustion, researchers have improved the performance of the positive electrodes by replacing cobalt oxide electrodes (which easily overheat) with manganese oxide – a more stable material. The technology has already been licensed to Tokyo based materials supplier Toda Kogyo, so the batteries should actually start showing up soon.