New Supercapacitor Tech Produces Batteries That Charge in Seconds, Last for Days

 

The long hours that your smartphone takes to charge may soon become a thing of the past, as scientists, including one of Indian-origin, have developed a new process to make electronic devices charge in seconds.
The researchers at University of Central Florida (UCF) in the US have developed a process to create flexible supercapacitors that have more energy storage capacity and can be recharged more than 30,000 times without beginning to degrade.
"If they were to replace the batteries with these supercapacitors, you could charge your mobile phone in a few seconds and you wouldn't need to charge it again for over a week," said Nitin Choudhary, a postdoctoral associate at UCF.
These supercapacitors that are still proof-of-concept could be used in phones and other electronic gadgets, and electric vehicles, said the study published in journal ACS Nano.
Anyone with a smartphone knows the problem. After 18 months or so, it holds a charge for less and less time as the battery begins to degrade.
Scientists have been studying the use of nanomaterials to improve supercapacitors that could enhance or even replace batteries in electronic devices. It is a stubborn problem, because a supercapacitor that held as much energy as a lithium-ion battery would have to be much, much larger.So the team experimented with applying newly discovered two-dimensional materials only a few atoms thick to supercapacitors. Other researchers have also tried formulations with graphene and other two-dimensional materials, but with limited success.
"There have been problems in the way people incorporate these two-dimensional materials into the existing systems - that's been a bottleneck in the field. We developed a simple chemical synthesis approach so we can very nicely integrate the existing materials with the two-dimensional materials," said principal investigator Yeonwoong "Eric" Jung, Assistant Professor at UCF.
Scientists already knew two-dimensional materials held great promise for energy storage applications. But until the UCF-developed process for integrating those materials, there was no way to realize that potential, Jung said.
"For small electronic devices, our materials are surpassing the conventional ones worldwide in terms of energy density, power density and cyclic stability," Choudhary pointed out.
Cyclic stability defines how many times it can be charged, drained and recharged before beginning to degrade.
For example, a lithium-ion battery can be recharged fewer than 1,500 times without significant failure. By comparison, the new process created by the researchers yields a supercapacitor that does not degrade even after it has been recharged 30,000 times.

Jaguar files patent for vehicle access system with facial recognition and gait analysis

Jaguar Land Rover has filed a U.S. patent for technology that uses facial recognition and gait analysis to unlock doors,
Published on October 13, the patent application for “Door access system for a vehicle” technology describes cameras mounted under the windows of the doors, which would take both video and still images of individuals approaching from the front or from behind.
The technology would then match images to those stored on the car’s database using gait or movement recognition technology, and unlock the doors if the system detects the car owner approaching.
“The user of the vehicle must carry out a registration process which requires them to record a still image of their face and a moving image such as a hand gesture or their gait as they approach the vehicle,” the patent states.
The patent application also states that the cameras would take a second picture when the car owner is standing beside the car and the facial recognition software would compare this to images stored on the system’s database. If the two images match the system would automatically unlock the doors.
The system could also be combined with wireless key fobs as an additional security measure, the patent states.
The combined use of video footage and gait recognition analysis ensures that would-be thieves cannot trick the system by holding up a printed image of the car owner’s face.
The patent application unveils Jaguar’s plans to use stereoscopic cameras that will capture a 3D image, which would allow the system to gauge how far an individual is from the vehicle as well as helping to analyze their movement.

The application also alludes to the fact that future Jaguar and Land Rover models may not have any door handles as the vehicle’s doors would automatically open when the car recognizes its owner approaching.
“The moving image may be a gesture, such as a hand wave, a salute or another hand signal which the user makes on approach to or arrival at the vehicle,” the patent states. “A still more sophisticated embodiment may use discrimination between different gestures to unlock different doors of the vehicles.”
The patent also describes how the system could learn to recognize multiple users so that family members can share a car.
Jaguar also states in the patent that the new technology will make cars more secure and more convenient in the event that drivers lose their keys.
“It is an ongoing challenge of the automotive industry to improve vehicle functionality and design and to further enhance the sophisticated feel of vehicles without additional cost,” Jaguar states in the patent. “In particular, vehicle personalization, where vehicle functions and features can be aligned with specific user requirements is an increasingly common aim. As far as door entry is concerned, such systems must also be robust against mis-use, for example theft or loss of a key-fob so that vehicle security is maintained.”
Frost & Sullivan Intelligent Mobility recently released a new report entitled ‘Biometrics in the Global Automotive Industry, 2016–2025‘, which forecasts that ongoing advancements in biometrics will significantly transform the driving experience, health wellness and well-being (HWW), and security of vehicles by 2025.