We depend so much on our smartphones nowadays - and as amazing as they are, there is one downside: the battery.
It's a daily struggle - you forgot to charge your phone, and now you're leaving the house with 30% battery. Or maybe you even charged your phone over night and it still doesn't last the whole day.
After a few hours you start compromising - switching to low battery mode, closing unused apps etc.
And then you try to charge your phone on the go - but it takes ages and you only manage to gain a few percent extra battery.
Now imagine you could fully charge your phone within just a few minutes, or even seconds?
It sounds unimaginable and almost too got to be true, but researchers from the Drexel University in Philadelphia have developed a material that could do just that.
The charging process, which currently takes about 2 hours for smartphones, could then be sped up to just a few seconds.
The key is a newly developed nanomaterial called MXene.
How does it work?
MXene is a two-dimensional material that consists of an oxide metal and a hydrogel. The hydrogel is squished between the metal like a sandwich.
The material is highly conductive: it allows ions to move through it with very high speed, which makes it ideal for battery membranes.
Traditional batteries have only limited pathways for ions to get to the ports - which means, limited speed with which they can charge your device.
MXene on the other hand creates multiple paths for the ions, which means that more ions can get to the charging ports at a higher speed.
For one, this is because there are more places for the ions to enter- or leave the battery, but also due to the high conductivity itself.
“In traditional batteries […] ions have a torturous path toward charge storage ports, which not only slows down everything, but it also creates a situation where very few ions actually reach their destination at fast charging rates. The ideal electrode architecture would be something like ions moving to the ports via multi-lane, high-speed ‘highways,’ instead of taking single-lane roads. Our macroporous electrode design achieves this goal, which allows for rapid charging — on the order of a few seconds or less.”-Maria Lukatskaya, researcher on the Drexel Team
The Result
The result of this technology would be a solution to charge your phone in seconds, or even milliseconds!
But think ahead: what else could this technology be used for in the future?
Wireless devices like Laptops, cameras, or even something as large as an electric car could be charged in a fraction of the time needed to charge them now!
“If we start using low-dimensional and electronically conducting materials as battery electrodes, we can make batteries working much, much faster than today. Eventually, appreciation of this fact will lead us to car, laptop, and cell phone batteries capable of charging at much higher rates — seconds or minutes rather than hours.”-Yuri Gogotsi, materials science and engineering professor
How far is the technology developed?
Now that we know how awesome this technology is and how it works, there is just one more question left: When can we finally start to use it?!
Although the team at Drexel has been experimenting with MXene since 2011, they have reached the breakthrough only recently.
It will take about 3 more years of research until the technology will become commercially available.
© Sirwinchester
In seconds....?
Thats absolutely insane.
whats crazy is, you just KNOW people will still find a way to be impatient with the technology.
"Do you know i had to wait a full 45 seconds for my phone to charge today, im going to call the company because its clearly defective"
we allllllll know those kinds of people
Well, this is very promising but has not applications on phones... Why?
Simple... consider iPhone 7, 1980mAh... that around 2A per hour to charge it full! So to charge it in seconds (let's say 60 seconds), you would need... 60 minutes x 2A ! = 120A! at the same 5V! to charge it in one minute!
Meaning, this is not possible using 5Volts! because a 120A cable is around 2 cm thick! So to bring it to a normal size cable (1-2 A), it would mean you need a 5 x 60 Volts! ... that's too way impossible for the ratings of materials we have in DC for consumer market... therefore... this tech does not yet apply to consumer electronics...
=)
I like post technology new
Technology is the future of tomorrow and today !
Hello. Excellent post of the technology to future. Charge phones or laptops among others. Follow me
@sirwinchester Technology would always outdo technology, and what was cool yesterday is now obsolete today!
This is great technology. I hope in near future it will be more discovered in this field, so charging all devices would be very short. Imagine electric car who can be charged with couple minutes, wonderful.
Very interesting! Thanks for your post!
@sirwinchester, this is incredible. Won't it have after effect on the phone's battery? Maybe weaken it?
Good...I'm still waiting for high quality fast charging batteries for years and the best we have available are lithium batteries...bah
3 years is still a good chunk of time out.. and then another year or 2 before people like you or me get anything with it in it I bet.. But progress is progress.. I know they guy that made Lithium Ion was back in the lab thinking he could make an even better battery, but hes getting up there in age, so we will see.. I was tying this and decided to look, they just finished solid state batteries.. article here.. So hopefully between the two, we will have progress soon!
“The glass electrolytes allow for the substitution of low-cost sodium for lithium. Sodium is extracted from seawater that is widely available,” - no more lithium necessary apparently either. Go old man Goodenough (yes thats really his name)
great post .. crazy how technology makes things faster and faster
It's really crazy all these inventions @sirwinchester! Just wondering what will come more in the future! Exciting time ahead for sure!
Cheers
@progressivechef
Some times technology get bought by some one trying to prevent it from commercialization. I fear this may be one of them.
Nice article. I have had some similar ideas rolling around in my head for a while now.
Maybe even before 3 years (hopefully)! Great post as always :)
Technologie 👍
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Can’t wait to try it out.
Great piece of informtion buddy.
I would buy it - ideally charging wireless all kind of devices within seconds - even a electric car - dreaming - thanks for that one @sirwinchester
I obtained knowledge through your article!Thank you!
Incredible, i want my Mxene coated everything.
I have voted for you can you vote my comment please .. Thank you dear in advance