What is the main problem of any mobile device in this world? Battery life! Whether we are talking about smartphones, mobile phones, tablets or laptops, they all have a big problem because they cannot work for unlimited periods, or at least for long periods of time, without being charged. The hardware has evolved enormously in recent years, but the technology behind the batteries has largely remained the same, but this could change in the near future because several American researchers they discovered a method to produce batteries that hold 10 times more energy and charge 10 times faster.
Professor Harold Kung, researcher at NU and lead author of the paper (published this month in the journal Advanced Energy Materials), has discovered not just one, but two techniques for improving this charge process. His lab decided to combine the strengths of both materials, carbon and silicon, by populating the area between the graphene sheets with silicon nanoclusters. These little clusters greatly increase the amount of ions that can be kept in the battery, and because they are small and the graphene is flexible, their size changes are manageable. Thus, the charge capacity of the battery was improved by, Kung says, a factor of ten.
Although the technology itself exists and works, it is still far from being released to the general public. The researchers who discovered it claim that only in 3-5 years they could have a version that could be produced on a large scale and implemented in the batteries available for mobile terminals. Basically, think that instead of 5,6,7,8 hours of using an iPhone 4/4S and 10 hours of an iPad tablet, you would get 10 times more and the battery charge would be 10 times faster quick. Speaking realistically, I don't think such a technology will reach the market in the next 5 years.
