Stop Charging Your Phone at Night, Here’s Why

How does a smartphone battery work?

Smartphones rely on lithium-ion batteries. Battery cells have two electrodes.

one electrode is graphite and the other is lithium cobalt oxide, and there’s a liquid electrolyte in between which allows the lithium ions to move between the electrodes.

When you charge they go from positive (lithium cobalt oxide) to negative (graphite), and when you discharge they move in the opposite direction.

Batteries are typically rated in cycles, for example, the iPhone battery is supposed to retain 80% of its original capacity after 500 complete cycles. A charge cycle is simply defined as using up 100% of your battery’s capacity, though not necessarily in one go from 100 to zero; it could be that you use 60% one day, then charge your phone up overnight, and then use another 40% the next day to complete a cycle.

Even though lithium-based batteries are rechargeable by nature, and made with this process in mind, they’re highly vulnerable to constant interactions with high voltage electricity, like in the outlets of your house. There are automatic switches on your phone that’ll stop the charging process the very moment it reaches 100%. But when your phone naturally goes down to 99%, the charging will start all over again a cycle that is repeated the whole night. This leads to overheat damaging your battery. It’s worse if you place your phone on a mattress or duvet while charging.

Overall, it’s always advisable to use good quality tech when it comes to something as expensive as smartphones these days.

Heat is bad for batteries. That’s why it’s so harmful to your phone if you leave it in a closed car in the middle of summer. You’ve probably heard something about fully depleting the charge of your smartphone and then charging it to the maximum capacity. This is fair for devices from the past decade. Any modern lithium-ion battery won’t get lazy like a cadmium based one, so you don’t have to worry about that.

Good, high-quality chargers have special chips in them that prevent over charging. So it’s advisable not to skimp on chargers – this way you won’t spend much more money on a new battery or entire smartphone too soon

WHAT’S THE FUTURE

we’ll have another kind of lithium-based battery that’ll be able to charge in a matter of minutes and last for more than one day. –

One of their new ideas is to make battery chargers that can produce energy from a Wi-Fi signal.

And how about charging a phone with a sound?

Using piezoelectric principals, tiny nano-generators will be able to transform the surrounding sound to electric power.

Scientists from Japan are in the middle of a decades-long study that will allow replacing lithium ion batteries with sodium.

Another idea is to use literal sand in batteries. Not quite literal though, as this battery will use silicon – the main component of the sand.

WHAT TO DO

The best course of action is to use good quality charging equipment, keep your smartphone out of the heat, and most importantly, keep the charge in it between 30% and 90%.