Why does it take longer to charge a mobile phone toward the end?

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From experience, we understand the speed at which a smartphone charges its battery slows down toward the end. Where it takes a certain amount of time to charge 80-85%, this final portion, which is 15-20%, takes a good length of time. Why? The reason has something to do with the nature of lithium batteries used in smartphones. Generally, these batteries follow some preordained process for charging when plugged into a power source.

As the battery charge is low at the initial stage, the empty cells inside the lithium-ion battery can afford to adjust to the ions quite easily. Fast charging means a high flow of electricity under increased pressure. Once the charge has gone up to 80-85%, the remaining ions take more time to find free cells in the layers of the battery. At this stage, some special batteries temporarily stop charging for 5 to 10 minutes or reduce the rate at which charges get in to make the ions settle.

That's analogous to traffic control at a busy junction where, to prevent congestion, traffic coming from one side is held up for some time. Only when the road begins to clear up can traffic flow again. Likewise, during the end of the charging process, it takes extra time for the charged ions to find their positions in the cells. Hence, battery charging slows down during its later stages.

In other words, as the charge of the battery increases, so does the potential or voltage difference between the anode and cathode. Now, for faster charging in this scenario, either the voltage has to be raised-which could damage the battery-or the charging must proceed at a slower pace. To avoid any type of damage, the charge pickup among smartphones occurs at a more conservative rate over the last few percents.

For instance, when my phone's battery is at 30 percent and I plug it into the charger, it may go to 95 percent in half an hour and go to the last 5 percent in 15 to 20 more minutes. The best time is to unplug when it is full. A lot of people plug in and sleep over, thus reducing the life span of the battery.

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