Simple technique puts graphene capacitors on par with lead-acid battery

Posted on August 5, 2013 by mea

The resulting material displays all the electrical properties associated with a capacitor, meaning that it can charge and discharge its full capacity almost instantly. But it has a storage density that’s right at the low-end of the range seen in lead-acid batteries. It’s also stable over multiple charge/discharge cycles and holds on to 90 percent of its capacity even after being charged for 300 hours straight.

via Simple technique puts graphene capacitors on par with lead-acid battery | Ars Technica.

For superfast 4G LTE Advanced smartphone and tablet connections, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile plan new network tests, and rollouts use chipsets from Qualcomm and others

Posted on February 7, 2013 by mea

Current phones generally use only one antenna taking one stream of data at a time. LTE Advanced devices will also need more energy storage to do the necessary onboard computation. Without new breakthroughs in batteries or reductions in power consumption by other means (see “Efficiency Breakthrough Promises Smartphones that use Half the Power”), phones will simply get larger.

via For superfast 4G LTE Advanced smartphone and tablet connections, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile plan new network tests, and rollouts use chipsets from Qualcomm and others | MIT Technology Review.

Will ubiquitous mobile data bring down its cost for low bandwidth users? We shall see.

Nanostructures Boost Battery Life Fivefold

Posted on January 9, 2013 by mea

Some of the most promising battery chemistries—which, in theory, could store several times more energy than today’s lithium-ion batteries and cost much less—have a fatal flaw. They can’t be recharged very often before they stop working, making them useless for applications such as electric vehicles. Now researchers at Stanford have created novel nanostructures that greatly increase the number of times one of these chemistries can be recharged, even to levels high enough for many commercial applications.

via Nanostructures Boost Battery Life Fivefold | MIT Technology Review.

Has World War II carrier pigeon message been cracked?

Posted on December 16, 2012 by mea

“You will see the World War I artillery acronyms are shorter, but, that is because, you have to remember, that, the primitive radio-transmitters that sent the Morse code were run by batteries, and, those didn’t last much more than a half-hour tops, probably less.

“Thus all World War I codes had to be S-n-S, Short-n-Sweet.

via BBC News – Has World War II carrier pigeon message been cracked?.

Smartphones to Use Half the Power as Researchers Claim to have solved Efficiency Problem

Posted on November 5, 2012 by mea

Almost everyone who owns a smartphone would have noticed that whenever they stream videos or play games their device gets warm and starts to drain battery rapidly. Engineers claim that power amplifiers are to blame for this behavior and that these chips waste as much as 65 per cent of their energy. The professors Joel Dawson and David Perreault, through their startup Eta Devices claim to have solved this problem with a new power amplifier design.

via Smartphones to Use Half the Power as Researchers Claim to have solved Efficiency Problem – ParityNews.com: …Because Technology Matters.

The new technology, dubbed asymmetric multilevel outphasing [PDF], is basically a super fast electronic gearbox that would select the best possible voltage to send across the transistors that would minimize power consumption. This process is done as many as 20 million times per second.

Crushed Silicon Could Triple Your Battery Life

Posted on November 2, 2012 by mea

Engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal and research scientist Madhuri Thakur reported in Nature’s Scientific Reports (it has yet to be published online) that by taking porous silicon and crushing it, they were able to dramatically decrease the volume required for anode material. Silicon has long been looked at as an anode material because it holds up to ten times more lithium ions than graphite, which is most commonly used commercially.

via Crushed Silicon Could Triple Your Battery Life | Motherboard.

The result is a new battery design that holds a charge of 1,000 milliamp hours per gram through 600 tested charge cycles of two hours charging, two hours discharging. According to the team, current graphite anodes can only handle 350 mAh/g.

Researchers create algorithms that help lithium-ion batteries charge two times faster

Posted on October 9, 2012 by mea

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have devised new algorithms that can cut lithium-ion battery charge times in half, help cells run more efficiently and potentially cut production costs by 25 percent. Rather than tracking battery behavior and health with the traditional technique of monitoring current and voltage, the team’s mathematical models estimate where lithium ions are within cells for more precise data.

via Researchers create algorithms that help lithium-ion batteries charge two times faster — Engadget.

LG produces the first flexible cable-type lithium-ion battery

Posted on August 31, 2012 by mea

LG Chem’s battery starts with thin strands of copper wire, which are coated with a nickel-tin (Ni-Sn) alloy to create the anode. These strands are twisted into a yarn, and then wrapped tightly around a 1.5mm-diameter rod. The rod is removed, leaving a strong spring. Next, aluminium wire is wrapped around the spring, and then the whole caboodle is dragged through a slurry of lithium cobalt oxide, which coats the aluminium wire and becomes the cathode. Finally, the anode-cathode spring is wrapped in a protective outer coating, and then an electrolyte is poured down the middle of the hollow spring to create a battery.

via LG produces the first flexible cable-type lithium-ion battery | ExtremeTech.

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