Israeli Startup Can Charge Your Phone in 1 Minute

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-30710295

by ilghiro • 12 years ago

57 35 12 years ago

bbc.co.uk

"The BBC has been given an exclusive look at a new kind of battery charger that can recharge a modern smartphone in less time than it takes to boil a kettle."

Unless I am missing something on Storedot's website, the BBC were actually shown a phone with an ultra-capacitor instead of a battery.

agildehaus• 12 years ago

From the video it just looks like a phony app that claims the battery is being charged.

kefka4• 12 years ago

This just sounds like complete snake oil.

When asked to explain, the spokesman says things like "we use new physics". That alone peaked my bullshit detector.

Every battery tech I'm also aware of cannot handle high amperage charging without things like outgassing, battery seperation, heating effects, and explosions. Even the venerable NiFe battery has problems with high current charging.

But this startup has beat it? [Citation needed]

lotsofmangos2• 12 years ago

It isn't a charging technology for existing batteries, the BBC are doing very crappy reporting. It is an ultra-capacitor made of peptides instead of a battery.

kefka4• 12 years ago

I wouldn't doubt that the BBC is doing bad reporting.

My concern is over using supercaps: their density is still very low compared to Li-ions on a volume basis.

Also, I noticed they are using a Samsung phone. Last time I used a supercap in a project, I had to build a complex circuit that compensates for exponential voltage drop but outputs constant voltage and amperage. I want to know how they got around that issue as well.

TeMPOraL• 12 years ago

Yeah. Also, I'm pretty sure this was in the news half a year ago.

codeduck3• 12 years ago

Lithium Iron Phosphate cells can charge at a rate of up to 5C with no side effects - they're used in more expensive hand-tools and as primary power cells for electric radio control aircraft and helicopters.

That said, smartphones don't use these batteries, and anyone who tried to put a couple of amperes into a standard lithium polymer battery is going to have an amusing experience.

tempodox3• 12 years ago

What exactly do you mean by “5C”?

ricket4• 12 years ago

5C is still like 10-15min for a full charge -- and definitely does have side effects, it causes damage to the battery and will result in sagging voltages and lower capacity in just tens of charges. 5C is too high of a charge rate.

I feel like you've mixed up LiFePO4 and LiPo. LiFe has low charge rates, lower energy density, lower voltage, and higher cost compared to LiPo. For R/C aircraft, it's typically used only for the receiver and servos of the really large helis/planes, because its lower voltage is tolerated by the servos whereas a LiPo needs a regulator to step down to 5-6V for driving servos. I can't speak for expensive hand tools, but "everyone" in the R/C community uses LiPo.

tempodox3• 12 years ago

I have the same doubts. For entertainment reasons, I would be interested in the explosions you mentioned, but other than that I would prefer my battery to survive its first recharge, and many more after that.

(Edit: Clarification)

ricket4• 12 years ago

It's not as entertaining than say a dynamite explosion, but here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixIOEPnsgbI

Gassing (or smoke, not sure which) starts around 15 sec. Plenty of results for 'LiPo explosion', 'overcharge lipo', etc.

A LiPo fire is a chemical reaction, it cannot be extinguished by traditional fire extinguishers (i.e. smothering does not extinguish, it's creating its own fuel) -- you have to wait for the battery to burn out and then extinguish the remains on fire. Treat your batteries (and electronics with batteries in them) well, folks.

dogma11382• 12 years ago

The technology seems to be viable, the team behind it is also not some garage citizen scientists but a quite established teams of researchers.

Techcrhuch had some articles about them this year http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/07/storedots-bio-organic-batte...

userbinator• 12 years ago

Some EEs here have raised the same skepticism about the charging rate: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/storedot-super-fast-ch...

There are specialist lipos used for RC planes/cars/boats that can handle 100C burst discharges but even those can't be charged at more than ~10-20C - and these cells have very high self-discharge and short cycle life, so they're quite unsuitable for mobile phones.

stewartbutler• 12 years ago

Maybe a nanopore/nanostructure battery[1,2]? They are touted to bring near-capacitor charge/discharge rates from fairly traditional chemistry. This specific application leaves a few questions, though:

1: What is the actual capacity of the battery demonstrated? If it has a high C but low capacity, this isn't really notable. The paper [1] indicates that total charge capacity is a function of how fast the battery is charged; what tradeoff are they making?

2: How many charge cycles is this battery capable of at those rates?

3: What thresholds are they putting in place for temperature, and are all the components of the phone rated for repeated thermal cycles to those levels and back to ambient?

4: What is the failure mode for this battery? Outgassing? What compounds are released in overcharge?

[1] http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/v9/n12/abs/nnano.2014.24...

[2] http://www.google.com/patents/US20060216603

AndrewDucker• 12 years ago

I'm currently backing the Petalite: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/petalite-flux-15-minute-c...

Which sounds rather more believable, and like it might be useful this year. I can live with 15-minute charging, and it being an external battery.

ricket4• 12 years ago

It's 100% believable, technology-wise. It's a 2600 mAh LiPo (or LiFePO4 or other similar lithium battery), and the charger charges it at about 4C == 10A. The tradeoff is that such high charge rate tends to damage the battery quicker (resulting in sagging voltages/lower capacity).

I don't believe their claims that it will last 3 years of regular use, that it will have 1500 charge cycles, or that it has "novel battery chemistry". I'd give it up to a year, and even then you'd probably be experiencing much lower capacity by the end of the year, but that's my rough guess. I'm also a bit surprised that it's deemed safe for consumers and will be certified.

newuser882732• 12 years ago

I used to have that technology on my first mobile phone, back in a previous millenium. It was called "spare battery".

tempodox3• 12 years ago

I think the point to be made here is the short recharge time. Did your spare battery recharge in minutes?

newuser882732• 12 years ago

No, but my pain point as a user is that I want a fully charged phone right now. I don't care that the spares sit in a charging station for an hour or two; that's an uninteresting detail of the implementation.

ceejayoz2• 12 years ago

And then battery technology improved to the point where it became better for most people to have a slimmer, sturdier device without the user-swappable part and all the doors and connectors such a thing entails.

jeffreyrogers2• 12 years ago

I can't imagine it would be that hard to make the battery removable? (I don't know for sure, just pure speculation). At any rate, I'd expect at least some phone manufacturer to create a modern smart phone like that.

4ndr3vv• 12 years ago

I used to have that feature on my first mobile phone, back in a previous millenium. It was called "spare battery".

ftfy

dogma11382• 12 years ago

From what i can understand the biological process is used to construct non-biological parts in this case very small semi-conducting crystals. The "battery" it self i would assume is some sort of a high density bank of MIS capacitors or any other semi-conductive capacitor.

According to some of the more business oriented reporting about the product their current end goal for 2017 is a 100-150$ batter capable of 1500-2000 discharge cycles this means that if it will be put in a phone it will give you a life time of 3-4 years depending on your discharge rate.

Their goals at least seem to be very realistic, even if the price will be a blocker even for most high end phone users. I do see this technology having many applications tho especially for military and emergency services. Considering that the US Army has trialed multiple Samsung phones so far with specialized software an "ultra battery" like this would be very appealing to them even if it will have a horrible life time and a very high price compared to commercial batteries. The Army can and will pay very high amounts if it means that the turn around for a soldier's computing package will be minutes instead of hours.

The company so far raised 40-50 million $ and not via "kickstarter" some of the investors are rumored to be phone giants including Samsung, and in any case venture capitalist firms don't ten to put 50M on the table for snake oil.

jeffreyrogers2• 12 years ago

in any case venture capitalist firms don't ten to put 50M on the table for snake oil.

You have a much higher view of VCs then I do then. I'm personally aware of a few tech companies that exist solely to siphon money from the investors to the founder. Rich people aren't always careful with their money, particularly when they are putting it into something hot, like tech, that they know nothing about.

sajal83• 12 years ago

No, it can't charge my phone in 1 Minute.

Israeli Startup Can Charge Your Phone in 1 Minute

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