The Future of the Battery

Our smartphones can do almost everything. They can send emails, run sophisticated apps, direct us to the right road, play music, and screen movies. But all of that power is dependent on one component, which has not changed in decades – the battery. As soon as the battery dies, our smartphones are nothing more than a brick that is useless until we reload it with electric juice.

But there are some Israeli developments that we have recently seen, and that are about to change the picture.

The first development is by a Ramat Gan company called Storedot. The company, which has been researching small molecules discovered as part of research into Alzheimer’s, has made use of them to create a biological battery. Storedot already has a working prototype, which demonstrates the following ability: it can charge a smartphone battery from zero to 100 percent in 40 seconds.

This wonder is due to the “charge trapping” capability of the molecules, which can absorb a current up to ten times better than more familiar materials. Although the prototype is still too big, and not yet ready for a standard charger, Storedot intends to have their product on the market by 2016. And they’ve got backing – according to the company, among their investors is one of the major battery manufacturers.

The second development comes from not too far away – Humavox, a young Kfar Saba company, is working on wireless electricity, but not in the form you may be familiar with from Qi or Powermat. We’re talking about wireless electricity that does not require contact, and is actually floating around in the air – electric power transmitted through radio waves. Humavox’s development is going to be integrated with power managers in cell phones, and so its capability will be built into the phones of the future.

If we put these two developments together, then our “charging experience” (isn’t everything today an “experience”?) will look something like this: we’ll toss our phone into a basket or other container with Humavox’s technology, and the Storedot battery will charge up in less than a minute. Think about it: without chargers, without cables, by the time you pick up the car keys and put your shoes on, you’ll have a battery that’s ready to go all day. And if you need to charge your smartphone in the middle of the day, then by the time you finish lunch – even if you are only having a cafe latte – your phone will be full of energy until the wee hours of the night. Say goodbye to phones that shut down in the middle of the day!