Charge Your Cellphone In 20 Seconds (Eventually)

New submitter GoJays writes "An 18-year-old from Saratoga, California has won 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 the inventor Eesha Khare." This one in particular has been used so far only to power an LED, rather than a phone or laptop, but I hope in a few years near-instant charging of portable electronics will be the norm as supercapacitors grow more common.

Comments

Re:little light on the science details.

[horza]

The problem is that Ubuntu touch doesn't support the 1x1 screen resolution. We need the inventor to release the specs so a Mir graphics driver can be written. I've tried an alpha version and personally find the scroll bars tricky, but then that's always been a problem with Unity. This is the problem with Canonical trying to get one OS to work every device.

Phillip.

Re:supercapacitors are cool

[ifiwereasculptor]

I think a better toilet-related analogy for slow intake and fast discharge would be someone at an all-you-can-eat taco buffet.