Samsung's graphene-enhanced batteries?

Graphene balls by Samsung

Batteries are a part of everybody’s life nowadays, they’re present in most devices like smartphones, smartwatches and even cars. Samsung is working on a new material-based battery, made with graphene. The Graphene Batteries are a huge improvement over today’s Li-Ion batteries.

Metals contain electrons that are free to move in the metal structure, carrying charge from place to place. A lithium-ion battery or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery in which lithium ions move from the positive terminal of a voltaic cell (negative electrode or cathode) to the positive electrode (anode) during discharge and back when charging.

Lithium-ion batteries can pose unique safety hazards since they contain a flammable electrolyte and may be kept pressurized. An electrolyte is a substance that produces an electrically conducting solution when dissolved in a polar solvent, such as water. Incidents with this type of batteries have already been reported numerous times, such as the infamous case of the Galaxy Note 7, from Samsung. Li-ion batteries are not the most durable as they lose efficiency over use, about 2% per month.

Graphene

Moving on to the interesting part... We have graphene: its a material formed by a single sheet of Carbon atoms bound together in a honeycomb pattern. It’s a really hard material to synthesize and it’s well-known for being a great lightweight conductor of thermal and electrical energy, chemically inert, flexible and eco-friendly. Batteries are significantly improved when enhanced with graphene. It will extend the battery’s lifetime, which is negatively linked to the amount of carbon that is coated on the material or added to electrodes to achieve conductivity, and graphene adds conductivity without requiring the amounts of carbon that are used in conventional batteries. Li-ion batteries can be enhanced by introducing graphene to the battery’s anode.
Samsung affirms that has successfully synthesised “graphene balls” that can boost battery capacity by 45% and charge them in about 15 minutes.

Now, if what Samsung says turns out to be true, we are looking at a new era of batteries, one that could lean towards a more eco-friendly future...