New Battery Will Let Phones Charge in Seconds, Last Over a Week

A new battery technology developed in the US will take seconds to charge, last over a week, and survive 30,000 recharge cycles, 20 times more than regular Lithium-ion batteries deployed today.

Developed by researchers at the University of Central Florida (UCF), this new type of battery model uses supercapacitors and can be molded into thin strips of material, taking up less space than current models.

New battery is flexible, can fold and twist

Researchers say the battery can be deployed with phones primarily, but also with cars, wearables, and other devices. Moreover, the battery is also made from a flexible material, making it ideal for all the foldable phones mobile vendors seem to be interested in developing these days.

While its small size and flexibility are useful, its power storage and quick recharge cycle are what makes it stand apart.

During preliminary tests, UCF researchers said the battery took seconds to charge, and lasted over a week before needing another recharge.

Battery lifetime is 20 times longer than Lithium-ion

Furthermore, tests also showed the battery lasted through 30,000 recharge cycles before showing any signs of fatigue that reduced its storage capacity.

Regular Lithium-ion batteries deployed today in cars and phones last around 1,000 recharge cycles, with the best going up to 1,500, before starting to lose efficiency.

Despite these advancements, researchers say the battery is a long way from being deployed in live products, being still in a testing phase.

"It's not ready for commercialization," one of the researchers said. "But this is a proof-of-concept demonstration, and our studies show there are very high impacts for many technologies."

The technology behind this breakthrough is supercapacitors, used efficiently for the first time in batteries.

Previous attempts to build batteries with supercapacitors resulted in bulky rigs that took up too much space. UCF researchers dropped the idea of using solid block materials and molded the supercapacitors as nanometric wires, coated with shells of two-dimensional materials.

The supercapacitor wires allow quick recharges, while the two-dimensional materials have high energy and power densities storage.

More details about this new technology can be found in the ACS Nano academic journal.

Not the first battery breakthrough this year, or month

This is not the only battery breakthrough this year. At the start of the month, researchers from Vanderbilt University announced they managed to create high-performance batteries from scrap metal such as brass and steel.

Furthermore, researchers from SolidEnergy Systems also found a way to double the capacity of lithium-ion batteries, while also halving their size, and scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, have come up with a battery design that works at higher temperatures than usual without catching fire. Additionally, researchers from the University of California, Irvine have accidentally discovered a battery model that lasts through 200,000 recharge cycles.