Samsung may be in the race to develop a graphene-based alternative to lithium-ion batteries for its phones. Rumors are going around claiming that the Company hopes to have at least one phone with a graphene battery ready next year or by 2021.

The word is that these graphene-based batteries will be capable of a full charge in under a half-hour, but they still need to raise capacities while lowering costs. In 2017, Samsung said its researchers developed a "graphene ball" material that enables five times faster charging speeds than standard lithium-ion batteries.

Samsung may be looking into battery alternatives following past problems with its Note 7 phones, when users started reporting overheating problems. Samsung tied the issues to a battery design flaw and recalled all the Note 7 phones on the market. That didn't seem to fix the problem, though, with the replacement devices also overheating. Samsung launched a second recall and stopped manufacturing the Note 7. Following the problems, Samsung changed its testing process for key mobile components and instituted an eight-point inspection process for batteries.