Sony is developing a new smartphone battery that could last 40% longer

The entirely new kind of battery could hit the market as early as 2020

Dashing for your phone charger could become a thing of the past once Sony's improved batteries hit the market (Martin Abegglen/Flicker (published under Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license))

While smartphones have grown in size and power in recent years, similarly huge leaps in battery technology haven't followed, leaving most smartphones struggling to get through a single day without needing to be plugged in at some point.

However, Sony has announced that it is currently developing an entirely new kind of battery that could have a capacity 40 per cent higher than existing models.

As reported by Japanese publication Nikkei, Sony's new battery will use a sulfur compound as an electrode material, increasing their energy density by volume from 700Wh/l to 1000Wh/l.

This essentially means that when compared to a traditional battery of the same size, the new battery will be able to last 40 per cent longer.

Fortunately for gadget owners, Sony wants to first bring them to market as smartphone batteries, before branching out to other applications.

Sony is aiming to make the batteries commercially available by 2020, so it might take a few more years until they actually make it into your phone.

Battery technology has generally moved fairly slowly, but there are some breakthroughs happening - Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei demonstrated a new battery in November that can be charged from zero to almost 50 per cent in around five minutes - much faster than the two to three hours it currently takes to fully charge a smartphone.