Having to set aside an hour or more to charge your smartphone is a minor annoyance, but one that could be going away. Startup StoreDot has shown off their rapid battery charging technology, which has the ability to charge a phone battery in 30 seconds. Though the company cautions that they likely won’t get this to market before 2016, it’s a breakthrough we’re happy to be seeing in 2014.
In the video below, we see a Samsung Galaxy S4 being used to demonstrate the technology. The device is plugged in at about 27% battery, and charges to full in a matter of seconds. No more airplane modes and missing emails for us; we can slip our phones into a charger while we make coffee, and find it ready to go in the time it takes to walk back to the charging dock.
Is it viable, though? StoreDot says they’ve built their technology to “withstand thousands of charge/discharge cycles, prolonging battery life expectancy considerably”, but note it isn’t the standard battery we’re used to, either in form or function:
In essence, what we have developed is a new generation of an electrode with new materials – we call it MFE – Multi Function Electrode. One side acts like a Supercapacitor (very fast charging), and the other is like a Lithium electrode (slow discharge). The electrolyte is modified as well with our nanodots in order to allow for the multifunction electrode to be effective. Although not quite there yet, we are aiming for the same capacity as a Li=ion battery (~2000mAh). Self-discharge is similar to Li-ion as well.
The company says they plan on reaching their goal of a larger battery in one year, with mass production scheduled (tentatively, of course) for 2016. Right now, StoreDot is noting they have one “large Asian smartphone manufacturer” on board. From the look of the video, we’re going to go ahead and make an educated guess as to who that might be.
Via: The Next Web