New Battery Recharges 70% in 2 Minutes and Lasts 20 Years

I’m looking forward to the day when we don’t have to use batteries. Some innovative companies have created ways to charge our gadgets with energy from our bodies. For now though, most of us ritualistically recharge our batteries daily. Researchers in Singapore recently developed a new battery tech that will allow batteries to recharge 70% in 2 minutes, plus they will last over 20 years.

This could quite possibly be the world’s fastest charging lithium-ion battery, and the applications reach much farther than just our personal gadgets. Take electric cars for example. They typically take 4 hours or more to charge. Imagine being able to charge your car battery in only 5 minutes. It almost seems too good to be true.

Since this new tech will allow the battery to withstand over 10,000 charging cycles, they will also last longer than any other battery, thus greatly reducing battery waste. This new battery was invented by Chen Xiaodong, an associate professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

According to Phys.org, it works like this:

Scientists replaced the traditional graphite used for the anode (negative pole) in lithium-ion batteries with a new gel material made from titanium dioxide, an abundant, cheap and safe material found in soil.

Naturally found in a spherical shape, NTU Singapore developed a simple method to turn titanium dioxide particles into tiny nanotubes that are a thousand times thinner than the diameter of a human hair.

By speeding up the chemical reaction, these scientists were able to speed up the recharging time. These next-gen lithium-ion batteries are expected to hit the market in about 2 years.

They will undoubtedly provide a huge quality-of-life upgrade for people who feel like they are constantly waiting for their gadgets to charge (I’m one of those people). I can’t even imagine what it would be like to completely charge my smartphone in less than 5 minutes!