Charge your mobile fully in 20 seconds... super capacitors

[Jayy]

Waiting hours for a cellphone to charge may become a thing of the past, thanks to an 18-year-old high-school student's invention. She won a $50,000 prize Friday at an international science fair for creating an energy storage device that can be fully juiced in 20 to 30 seconds.

The fast-charging device is a so-called supercapacitor, a gizmo that can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges quickly and holds its charge for a long time.

What's more, it can last for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles, compared with 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries, according to Eesha Khare of Saratoga, Calif.

"My cellphone battery always dies," she told NBC News when asked what inspired her to work on the energy-storage technology. Supercapacitors also allowed her to focus on her interest in nanochemistry — "really working at the nanoscale to make significant advances in many different fields."

To date, she has used the supercapacitor to power a light-emitting diode, or LED. The invention's future is even brighter. She sees it fitting inside cellphones and the other portable electronic devices that are proliferating in today's world, freeing people and their gadgets for a longer time from reliance on electrical outlets.

"It is also flexible, so it can be used in rollup displays and clothing and fabric," Khare added. "It has a lot of different applications and advantages over batteries in that sense."

Khare's invention won her the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, conducted this week in Phoenix, Ariz. For more information about the event and other prize winners, check out our earlier coverage.

https://www.nbcnews.com/technology/teens-invention-could-charge-your-phone-20-seconds-1C9977955

[gfrancisdev]

well yeah they're cool bits of kit and all, but the supercapacitor wasn't invented by an 18 year old girl

it's simply an extension of the basic capacitor design using some shiny materials and maths

biggest problem is if anyone shorts the terminals, definately don't want that happening in your pocket if it's got enough charge to act as if it's a battery
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[Jayy]

Looks like graphene?

Very cool though, can imagine in 5 years or so that all our devices just never run out of power with these little badboys in them.

[oldpink]

Super capacitors (or current dump capacitors) are nothing new
they were used in power amps from the late 60's onward
there function was like a dam, they store the power till its required
I accidentally discharged one 24 hrs after it was last powered up
and it blew me across the room

fair enough they were pretty big back then but I suspect modern materials would make them a lot smaller
she's just using it in a different way
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[Rogerborg]

I'm going to go ahead and assume that's a parent-daughter project (I wonder what daddy does for a living?) and she's being used as handy PC PR by the awards body.

People working on actual commercial implementations must be sighing and imagining what they could buy with that money.
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[el_oso]

there was a forum post not so long ago about using super capacitors instead of the large batteries inside electric vehicles. Not sure if it was posted in the geek section or somewhere else such as found on the internet/random banter.
Nothing new here, but still a device that has a huge amount of potential uses. I remember making a remote control car in school that used a combination of solar power and wall to charge up. Trouble was each capacitor could only drive the motor for about a minute before needing a recharge. You could however recharge the thing instantly.
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[orac]

for those who need to understand more about capacitor and why they are more capable then batteries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoWMF3VkI6U
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