A Samsung smartphone has just been recharged from being nearly
out-of-juice to full capacity in less time than it takes to boil a
kettle.
The Israeli start-up behind the demo, Storedot, has shown off a similar feat before.
But a previous demo posted online eight months ago involved a
battery many times thicker than the handset itself as well as an
outsized charger - making the tech impractical for real-world use.
This time round the phone involved is no bigger than normal, and the charging dock is pretty slim-line as well.
There's a couple of trade-offs involved, but being able to recharge
devices about 100 times faster than at present has the potential to
revolutionise the way we use mobile phones, tablets, laptops and
wearable tech.
Storedot's ambitions, however, are even larger.
Organic batteries
The BBC is the first to have been shown the new kit, apart
from tech industry executives who had to sign non-disclosure agreements.
It's not something that can be retrofitted to existing
devices, since most phones would be fried by the 40 amps of electricity
the current version of the charger supplies.
It also involves using a completely new type of battery, which contains specially synthesised organic molecules.
"We have reactions in the battery that are non-traditional
reactions that allow us to charge very fast, moving ions from an anode
to a cathode at a speed that was not possible before we had these
materials," explains Doron Myersdorf, the company's chief executive.
He adds that phone-makers from the US, South Korea, China and Japan
have already begun talks to either license or buy exclusive rights to
the tech, and that he has 17 meetings at this year's Consumer
Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas with "all the major" players.
But Mr Myersdorf also acknowledges that there is still more work to be done before his tech is ready for consumers.
Storedot has a 2017 goal of matching the energy density - the
amount of energy stored per kilogram - of its own batteries and the
lithium-ion ones commonly found in existing handsets.
The firm's prototypes currently deliver about a third of that
rate, meaning the normal-sized handset used in the demo only held
900mAh of juice, and would have to be recharged several times a day were
it deployed now albeit only taking two minutes to do so each time.
The company also showed off a 2,000mAh battery, which took
three minutes to recharge, but the phone that housed it had been made
5mm (0.2in) thicker than normal to accommodate its girth.
By the 2017 deadline, Storedot also aims to halve its current charging times.
Abramovich backing
At this point it's probably wise to offer a caveat.
The tests involved the BBC being shown a graphical readout to prove the batteries were being recharged as fast as suggested.
This would be relatively easy to fake, and Mr Myersdorf acknowledges that his scientific claims have yet to be peer reviewed.
But his credentials and those of his chief technology
officer, Prof Simon Litsyn, check out. Both held key roles at Sandisk,
which they helped make a leader in flash memory tech
Furthermore, their firm has already raised $48.5m (£32.1m) of funds,
$10m of which came from Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich's private asset
management company. The BBC understands Samsung is among the other
investors.
Even so, one industry-watcher remains wary.
"Battery technology is the single biggest challenge holding
back the consumer electronics industry right now," says Ben Wood from
the CCS Insight consultancy.
"Any claim to a major breakthrough should always treated with
scepticism because it's been promised so many times before and we still
don't have a solution.
"But if what this company is claiming to offer comes to pass,
it would have a huge impact, as the amount of battery-hungry connected
devices people use in their daily lives is rising exponentially."
Game-changer'
Increasing battery life has become the Holy Grail of the gadget industry
Certainly, CES itself is packed with firms offering a plethora
of portable batteries to help users make it through the day, everything
from lip-stick sized chargers for emergency top-ups to a $500 (£300)
backpack that can power up several gadgets at once.
Were we able to recharge smartphones in less than a minute,
the need to buy such external batteries would decrease - and we might
even become more willing to use processor-intensive apps and games, as
well as adopt smartwatches and other wearable tech.
But Storedot has a bigger plan.
"We are just starting to work on electric vehicles," says Mr Myersdorf.
"And we intend to show in one year a model of a car that can charge in three minutes.
"We are 100% sure we can deliver, because the knowhow of how
you take one cell and combine thousands of them together has already
been done by Tesla.
"The user-experience would be exactly like refuelling, but without fumes.
"It would really boost adoption of electric vehicles. It would be a game-changer."
more on:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30708945
