IT'S BECOME PART of the daily ritual:
Get home, plug in your phone, wake-up to a full battery, repeat. Our poly-gadget lives depend on our batteries having enough juice for the day, and depending on how we use them, they're usually good for just about one workday of use.
However, a new nanochemical innovation from an 18-year-old California teen may throw this whole ritual on its head. Eesha Khare of Saratogoa, California took home a US$50,000 (NZ$62,500) scholarship from this year's Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for her supercapacitor battery that can fully charge a smartphone in less than 30 seconds. Additionally, the tiny technology can last for 10,000 charge- recycles, compared to only 1000 cycles for traditional rechargeable batteries.
Manufacturers are surely taking note that in addition to its extreme efficiency, Khare's charger is also flexible, which would make it an ideal component for the coming wave of wearable tech making its way to our faces.
Aside from mobile, the technology has obvious applications in all-electric cars.
Tesla's all-electric Model S recently scored a 99 out of 100 from Consumer Reports.
The only reason it didn't score a perfect 100 was because of the time it takes to fully charge - around five hours even when using Tesla's proprietary high power wall Connector.
Hopefully, Elon Musk is watching.
The Intel Fair also recognised 17-year-old Henry Wanjune Lin of Shreveport,
Louisiana for his new cosmological mapping data and awarded him a US$50,000 scholarship.
Nineteen-year- old Romanian lonut Alexandru Budisteanu took home the fair's Gordon
E. Moore Award and its US$75,000 scholarship for his new take on autonomous car navigation tech that costs around only US$4,000 to implement.
0 comments:
Post a Comment