The woes of short smartphone battery life could soon be over, if enough attention is paid to the amazing work being carried out by researchers at Stanford University. The man behind the discovery is chemistry Professor Hongjie Dai, who has developed a prototype aluminium battery with some of his students. Preliminary tests carried out have already revealed that an aluminium battery has a number of benefits over the alkaline and lithium-ion batteries currently used.
A Breakthrough in Battery Technology
The amazing possibilities that this new aluminium battery hold are plentiful, and to start with they are much safer and less damaging to the environment than current battery technology. Professor Dai explained, “We have developed a rechargeable aluminium battery that may replace existing storage devices, such as alkaline batteries, which are bad for the environment, and lithium-ion batteries, which occasionally burst into flames. Our new battery won’t catch fire, even if you drill through it.”
Just Some of the Many Benefits
Besides being a safer and less harmful battery material, aluminium also has a whole bunch of other benefits too. To start with it can be charged at an incredibly high speed, so that a current smartphone size battery could be fully charged within just 60 seconds. The current prototype battery can also be charged somewhere in the region of 7,500 times. Existing lithium-ion batteries usually last for around 1,000 charges before they die. The aluminium battery can also be bent, which would throw open the doors for future smartphone innovation.
An Affordable and Abundant Material
Perhaps the greatest advantage that aluminium holds is that there is lots of it and it is not very expensive. Once a fully working and tested battery has been developed that matches existing battery sizes, old battery technology could soon become redundant.
The post The Smartphone Battery that Charges in 1 Minute appeared first on ON.com Blog.
