role in the nanoballs

Extract from Friday 10/09 FR..by Edie Lush.

In March,Professor Gerbrand Ceder,of the Massachusetts
institute of technology [MIT],unveiled a battery capable
of charging a hundred times faster than ordinary batteries.
His cathode comes with tiny balls of lithium iron phosphate,
called nanoballs because each measures just 50 nanometres
[one billionth of a metre across].The nanoballs release
the lithium-irons much more rapidly,making the charge
faster.

This means,potentially that a plug-in hybrid car could
charge in "five" minutes,and a mobile phone in "ten"
seconds