A little about the new type of batteries. A 'silk' battery from China versus nanotechnology from Russia, the principle of a Soviet calculator in modern Japanese smartphones, an aluminum battery that can be charged in a minute, and more
A couple of weeks ago, we talked about how you can achieve an increase in battery life in theory. Now let's see how this is in practice. Let's take news from the last month as an example.
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Offtopic: live to the socket |
Stanford University has developed a fundamentally new type of battery that can become almost perfect. Judge for yourself: flexible, safe, cheap to manufacture, ultra-fast charging speeds and high recharge cycles. All this makes it an excellent solution for both traditional mobile devices and wearable electronics and smart technology of all stripes, from drones to smart clothes.
The battery belongs to the class of aluminum-ion and looks more like a piece of foil than the batteries we are used to. Yes, and during operation it behaves completely differently – for example, unlike its lithium-ion relative, it can be easily drilled through. This will not lead to an explosion, ignition and other unpleasant consequences. It is also important that even the prototypes available to developers can easily withstand 7500 charge cycles without losing capacity, while in most Li-ion batteries this parameter is almost ten times less. Let's say the battery Apple Watch after 1000 charge cycles will lose 20% of its original capacity, and the battery iPhone will need even less for this – only 500 cycles.
But the most interesting thing is the charging speed of such a battery, which, according to the assurances of the developers, will be about a minute. Plug your smartphone into an outlet, slowly count to ten, and that's it, the battery is charged, you can move on.
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Alas, this barrel of honey was not without a fly in the ointment. Or, to be more precise, even without two spoons, each of which is comparable in size to a ladle. Firstly, current prototypes can only supply 2 volts, while Li-ion batteries only supply 3.6. And secondly, the aluminum batteries are not yet all right with the most important parameter – specific energy consumption. So far, the developers have managed to achieve only 40 watts per kilogram against 100-206 Wh / kg for lithium-ion batteries.
I would like to believe that over time these shortcomings will be overcome. In the meantime, using such batteries in smartphones will be far more harmful than beneficial.
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Russian researchers are not lagging behind their foreign colleagues. Scientists from the Institute of Laser Physics (ILP) of the SB RAS and the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry (IIC) of the SB RAS are working on a unique technology that can increase the capacity of batteries tenfold without changing their physical dimensions. Or, as an option, to release absolutely miniature batteries, which are in no way inferior in their characteristics to modern batteries.
The essence of the technology lies in the use of a special coating with carbon nanotubes, the diameter of which will be from one to several tens of nanometers.
Here is what one of the scientists working on it says about this invention:
Carbon nanotubes have high electrical conductivity. And the capacitance of a capacitor is actually its surface area. And when we put carbon nanotubes on an ordinary flat surface, the area of that surface 'develops'. The charge accumulates on the nanotubes themselves, and the capacity (of the capacitor) already depends on this developed area.
It sounds just amazing, but there is only one problem – there is not even an approximate time frame for the introduction of such technology into production. So how long can we wait for such rechargeable batteries, we can only guess.
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As you can see, there are enough projects and inventions in the field of batteries, including those that seem absolutely fantastic. But one of the highest priority areas is still considered to be solid-state batteries, over the creation of which several large companies are fighting at once. For example, such research is already underway in the Google X laboratory.
Specialists of the Sakti3 company, which was founded several years ago by immigrants from the University of Michigan, are engaged in something similar. In theory, their solid-state Li-ion batteries will double the capacity for the same size.
Unfortunately, there are no details about the progress of work on this project. But it is quite indicative that Sakti3 is financially supported by several world famous companies at once, from the carmaker General Motors to the British manufacturer of household appliances Dyson. The latter recently invested $ 15 million in this research.Dyson founder James Dyson commented on this decision as follows:
Sakti3 has achieved a leap in performance that current battery technology simply cannot provide.
Judging by indirect signs, the Sakti3 project is much more than just another vague promises of a bright future.
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But in Volkswagen they decided to bet on another horse – the American company QuantumSpace Corp., which also develops solid-state batteries. They are also in no hurry to share details, it is only known that, according to the calculations of specialists Volkswagen, the new batteries will increase the range of electric vehicles to 700 km. Moreover, representatives of the auto concern officially announced that progress in the development of such batteries is very noticeable and a bright future is not far off.
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Meanwhile, Chinese researchers from the Beijing Institute of Technology have a fundamentally different view of things. Instead of spawning superfluous entities and reinventing the wheel, they suggest improving existing batteries.
Moreover, it is proposed to do this in the best Chinese traditions – with the help of not unknown nanotechnologies, but the most ordinary silk. As it turned out, after special processing, a special material can be obtained from natural silk that can hold five times more lithium than the usual graphite, which is now widely used in Li-ion batteries.
The capacity of the first prototypes of 'silk' batteries was 1865 mAh / g versus 372 mAh / g for standard products, and after 10,000 recharge cycles they lost only 9% of the original capacity.
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Speaking of battery life, one cannot help but recall Tesla's household batteries. Already today, they are being actively installed in the buildings of commercial companies in the United States and, together with solar panels SolarCity, can reduce energy costs by 20%.
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What do smartphones have to do with it, you ask? It's very simple – you can use the same principle in them.
Even in Soviet times, calculators with solar panels appeared. If external lighting allowed, then they could only work from them. If it was strained with the light, then they compensated for the missing voltage using a conventional battery. Thus, one could practically not worry about their charge, a standard battery lasted for a very long time. About ten years ago I first saw a TV remote control that worked on a similar principle, and a couple of years ago I came across an advertisement for covers for iPhone with solar panels. It seems that now it has come down to the smartphones themselves.
According to the resource Pocket-lint, the Japanese company Kyocera is developing a smartphone that can convert the light falling on the screen into electricity. For this, between the display and the protective glass, it is planned to place a light-sensitive layer of transparent material that transmits 90% of the light.
The only question is the efficiency of such a screen. It's one thing to charge a simple calculator from sunlight. And a completely different thing is a modern smartphone, which has long been more a computer than a telephone. Moreover, make the solar battery almost transparent. For the sake of gaining a couple of percent of the charge, no one will put up with the deterioration of the screen properties, which is unlikely to be completely avoided. Moreover, how noticeable this light-sensitive layer will be in real life, it almost does not matter – the hysteria around the same PenTile still does not subside, although it is difficult to see it even under a magnifying glass on modern screens.
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Another way to conserve battery power towards the end of the day is to use less power. But this is not about limiting yourself when using your smartphone. And about limiting the smartphone itself.
Nikola Labs developers believe that the smartphone consumes energy completely irrationally. He spends a lot of energy on empty attempts to connect to the cellular network or unsuccessful data transfer. The case they have designed will help conserve up to 90% of that energy by converting Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LTE waves into battery power.
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In words, everything is very solid – partnership with Ohio State University, official patents and everything else. The only alarming thing is that this is not the first attempt by various startups to release such a 'miracle case'. But no one has gone beyond loud words (and in some cases even collecting pre-orders). And how such a cover will affect the quality of communication is also completely unclear.
The developers are planning to submit the project on Kickstarter next month, and would love to believe that all this hype is not just a way to make easy money from gullible investors.
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