11-25-2016, 09:42 AM
A team at the University of Central Florida has developed a process for creating supercapacitors with 20 times the battery life of current lithium-ion batteries. The flexible supercapacitors can also be fully charged in a matter of seconds, and can be recharged more than 30,000 times without degrading. Nitin Choudhary, a postdoctoral associate who conducted much of the research, said: “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.”
Breakthrough could lead to smartphone batteries that last for weeks
Fluidic Energy is a commercial-scale, zinc-air battery firm. Although the firm has raised more than $150 million in funding from strategic, venture and government sources, it has managed to keep a relatively low profile. That is, until now -- with recent news of the firm's memorandum of understanding in partnership with Caterpillar and PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara, Indonesia's state-owned electric utility. Normally, we would apply Mehta's law to any MOU and discount the news. But Fluidic is in production and has shipped 50,000 of its battery cells, a total of more than 10 megawatts of battery storage for deployments in developing nations as a replacement for diesel generators or lead-acid batteries. Fluidic CEO Steve Scharnhorst admits that an "MOU is just a right to have a discussion," but notes that the company is moving fast and is already in the middle of contract negotiation..
Fluidic Energy Is the Biggest Zinc-Air Battery Startup You Haven’t Heard Of | Greentech Media
Over the past years, hydrogen fuel cell and battery propulsion technologies gave themselves a race about the pole position in electromobility. A joint study by the Stanford University and TU Munich (Munich Technical University) generated a rather significant hint which one makes more sense. Fuel cell fans must be very strong now: Battery electric cars are clearly superior over fuel cell, at least in terms of sustainability. The reason is that hydrogen requires a very costly infrastructure; batteries therefore are the more cost-effective solution.
Batteries more sustainable than fuel cells, study says | Electronics EETimes