Eamex, a Japanese company, claims to have figured out how to greatly increase the lifespan of the high-capacity lithium-ion batteries that run hybrids and electric vehicles.

The new batteries can supposedly survive 10,000 charge cycles and 20 years, which is quite a bit better than what we've got now. How do they work?

The main idea is to stabilize the electrodes and prevent the deterioration of tin, making the batteries withstand repeated charges. The batteries have a negative electrode that incorporates a tin-coated resin and accumulates lithium ions coming from the positive electrode. The positive electrode is made of silicon and tin and swells while generating the ions.

As a result, the repeated charging and discharging causes the binding between particles in the tin to weaken, but Eamex's technology helps to effectively maintain the bonding among those particles.

Neat! If the tech lives up to the claims, we should see these guys in electric vehicles within a few years. [CrunchGear]