CES Reveal: a new smartphone battery that fully recharges in two minutes or less

A new battery pack is in the works that can recharge handsets from zero to full in two minutes or less. Developed by Israeli nanotech Startup, StoreDot, the prototype device is currently being demoed at CES 2015 by CEO Doron Myersdorf.

The technology originally debuted in a video the company posted online eight months ago, but the original prototype was many times larger than the phone itself, making it impractical for actual use. This time, StoreDot is back with a new, significantly smaller version that doesn't add any bulk to phone.

The technology may sound too good to be true, and in a sense, it is under the limitations of contemporary battery design. Myersdorf explains that StoreDot took a completely different approach and designed an entirely new internal battery structure based on synthesized organic molecules, rather than attempting to improve the capacity of existing batteries. 

“We have reactions in the battery that are non-traditional reactions that allow us to charge very fast, moving ions from an anode to a cathode at a speed that was not possible before we had these materials,” explains Doron Myersdorf, the company's chief executive. The tradeoff was the overall battery life(of the charging unit) is very short, lasting only a few hours.

Also — the device cannot be retrofitted onto existing phones or else they will be fried from its 40 amps of electricity. Unfortunately, future phones must be modified to accommodate the battery, and doing so will add approximately $50 in cost to the unit as the battery is more expensive than current variety. Furthermore, it will be to individual manufacturers to decide whether they wish to license and take advantage of the technology.

The startup's current prototype only delivers one-third of energy density of the lithium-ion batteries found in existing handsets, meaning that the handsets used in the CES demonstration only hold about 900mAh and must be recharged multiple time a day at less than two minutes a pop. StoreDot hopes to have this completed by 2017, although its overall vision extends beyond just smartphones; the company is also developing an a electric car that recharges in three minutes.

If StoreDot accomplishes what it set out to do, the implications will rippled across consumer electronics, rendering all battery-extensions obsolete. 
  
Source BBC/Mashable