We all know what a hassle re-charging our mobile phone or laptop batteries can be. I mean just when we are about to send that all important email or make that urgent phone call we are abruptly disconnected with no apologies at all and have to sit attached to an electric socket for hours, possibly even overnight, until fully recharged again.
Well those days will soon be history. Scientists at MIT have managed to develop a new device that will be able to fully re-charge our batteries in a matter of seconds instead of hours. Amazing eh? Can’t wait! So how did they do it?
Traditional lithium batteries can store a lot of energy but take ages to recharge because of what was originally thought to be limitations in the lithium itself but researchers have discovered that it isn’t the lithium that is the problem; it’s the substrate around it. This discovery has enabled them to find a way of dramatically speeding up the recharging process
Now they are able to make the ions travel more quickly and directly into the “tunnels” and therefore supply a charge much faster than before. It also means that batteries could be smaller and lighter in the future because less material is required and the new material used doesn’t degrade as much even when it is repeatedly recharged.
The researchers behind the new discovery, Gerbrand Ceder the Richard P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, and Byoungwoo Kang, a graduate student in materials science and engineering, have published their findings in the March 12th edition of Nature.
“The ability to charge and discharge batteries in a matter of seconds rather than hours may open up new technological applications and induce lifestyle changes,” Ceder and Kang concluded in the paper.
They’re not kidding there. The big question for most of us is when will we see it?
According to the researchers because the material is not new and they have only changed the way it is made, products should be available for shipping in a couple of years or so. Their work has already been licensed by two companies but at the moment we don’t know who they are.
Anyway, a battery that recharges in seconds, I’m sure there will be queues of people right out the door lining up for that, me included.
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That’s awesome news! I wonder if this new technology could be used in the batteries of electric vehicles? That would be sweet!
Yeah imagine that a car that could charge in 5 mins ? I think that would really help advance the electric car industry very very quickly.
That’s exactly what I need for both my mobile phone and Dell Inspiron 6400 Laptop (with its annoying 50 minute battery life!).
When I get my hands on the new netbooks that can last up to 9 or 12 hours, that is when this speed charge REALLY comes in handy. Just zip the charger in and poof! another 9 hours of computing is back!
And who knows; one day our DESKTOPS will be equipped with these batteries for backup in case of a power surge.
I know , how good will that be ! plugining your laptop or netbook in for charge for a few seconds and bang of ya go!!