by the Professional Power Tool Guide Crew
If you own a PDA, cell phone, laptop or iPod, chances are you already have a lithium ion battery in your possession. But just because you have something doesn’t mean you know what it is or how it works, right? So what is a lithium ion battery and why is it so popular today?

Well, lithium batteries gained popularity over the last few years because they have been proven to be the most efficient rechargeable batteries on the market today. They are incredibly versatile and they don’t take up much room, so companies started implementing them into their modern technologies. Let’s explain this concept a little further though to truly grasp what this device is all about.
To answer the simple question of what is a lithium ion battery, it is basically like any other battery, but it contains electrodes made out of lithium and carbon. Lithium is very reactive, so it makes an ideal battery component because it can hold energy within its atoms for prolonged periods of time. Typically, a battery featuring lithium-ion power can hold 150 watt-hours of energy in a single kilogram of its weight. A regular battery can only hold about half that on a good day. Thus the lithium option is more viable in the present state of technology.
The reason for the popularity of lithium batteries is made obvious by the functionality of them. Answering “what is a lithium ion battery?” shows that it is by far the best choice for rechargeable energy in the industry. Beyond its holding capacity, the battery can also maintain a charge longer than other batteries on the market. If you were to leave one of those batteries idle, you would find only a 5% loss of charge in a month’s time. Most of us use our lithium powered devices, so we lose power faster than that. It still goes to show you how powerful these things really are.
Probably the best feature of lithium technology is that it has no memory effect. We’ve all heard myths of our phones not holding a charge unless they die first, and that may have been true in the past. However, with lithium now on the scene, people can recharge whenever they want to and get the same energy no matter what. This makes it a lot easier to keep phones and PDAs in working order because people can just plug them in whenever they start to look low, rather than patiently waiting for them to die. In short, what is a lithium ion battery? Nothing less than brilliance in the modern world.











[...] models. Most of these pieces of power equipment are covered by a five year warranty, and the lithium ion tools in this line are covered for a full ten years, the longest warranty in the industry. In the [...]