Battery Technologies that Could Make Your Devices Stay Charged for Days

The convenience of cell phones, tablet PCs, and laptop computers begins with their portability. The three mainstays of portability are device size, computational power, and battery life. Each quality is relative to the next in different ways, but generally an increase in either device size or computational ability limit battery life. Advancements in battery technology have been mostly canceled by advancements in features that require more power consumption. These recent scientific advancements may give battery life the jump it needs to last days, or possibly indefinitely no matter how large or smart your device is.

Out of power? Charge it faster!

One of the most promising advancements that will certainly become integrated into our current technology is the ability to charge your device in a fraction of the time it currently takes. Scientists at M.I.T. have reported that they have devised a way for lithium ions to move in and out of the batteries 100x faster than previously demonstrated. The biggest downside to Lithium batteries have been their capacity to charge and discharge quickly. Proof of this phenomenon can be seen in the battery powered Tesla Roadster which can attain remarkable speed, but suffers poor acceleration. Scientists coated the lithium iron phosphate material found in Li-Ion batteries with a glasslike lithium phosphate ion conductor. Cell phones will be able to reach full charge in seconds with the new material, but the current electrical grid could not support the pull from a hybrid car's battery that contained the new material.

Let's build a better battery!

Lithium ion and Lithium polymer batteries are a great improvement over the nickel cadmium batteries previously used in electronics, but still use the same basic concept pioneered by Alessandro Volta in the 19^th century. Scientists at MIT's Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (LEES) are conducting work that may lead to the first economically viable alternative to the conventional model created over 200 years ago. The recent introduction of nanotube technology may allow ultracapacitors, which store their energy as an electrical field as opposed to getting power from chemical reactions, to store their energy at an atomic level. The associate director of LEES Joel E. Schindall put it best, "Nanotube-enhanced ultracapacitors would combine the long life and high power characteristics of a commercial ultracapacitor with the higher energy storage density normally available only from a chemical battery."

Perpetual Motion LCD Screen

A devices backlight consumes 80 to 90 percent of the energy used, and over 75 percent of that is lost to polarizers. To say the least, simply displaying the information is an extremely inefficient design. Researchers at UCLA have come up with a way to use photovoltaics to recover much of the energy that is wasted, significantly bolstering the battery life of devices with LCD screens. The LCDs would also be capable of harvesting ambient light and direct sunlight, to possibly keep a device at full charge. Even if you use your device to the point it can't replenish the energy faster than you drain it, it would still last over twice as long and you could get a quick recharge by sitting the phone on your dashboard.

Alternate Energy Part 2

Everyone is aware of solar power, and I have always wondered why cell phones lack a strip of solar cells like calculators used to have, if just the slightly bolster the battery life and allow users to get a mall charge in an emergency. Professor Artie Mcferrin and his team at Texas A&M have taken a route less traveled, and discovered a way to charge batteries with sound waves. Any nearby sound waves will work, so if you're low on charge in a crowded mall or near a babbling brook, you will have an option for charging. The team that developed the technology has recently found that the piezoelectric material can convert energy much more efficiently at a very small size, nearly 100 percent more efficiently in fact at 21 nanometers in thickness. The technology is very robust, and if teamed with better batteries and photovoltaics, could really help make your batteries keep going, and going, and going.