Phone owners bemoaning their feeble battery life may have some hope, at least, for the future: Northwestern University engineers have developed a cellphone battery that charges in 15 minutes and stays charged for more than a week.
They've created an electrode for lithium-ion batteries that allows the batteries to hold a charge up to 10 times greater than current technology and charge 10 times faster.
"Even after 150 charges, which would be one year or more of operation, the battery is still five times more effective than lithium-ion batteries on the market today," says lead author Harold H Kung.
As well as better batteries for cellphones and iPods, the technology could lead to more efficient, smaller batteries for electric cars, says the team. The technology could hit the market in the next three to five years.
