And not just your phone, but any gadget.
What kinds of new things might this enable?
Longer battery life means fewer charging stops, but it also means a lot more than that.
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First is a lessened environmental impact if batteries need to be replaced less often.
Think about the different ways you treat gadgets depending on their battery life.
One answer comes from old analog gadgets.
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Before we put computers in everything, devices would last months.
Wristwatches are the same.
This let us forget that they even needed power.
Youd just use the camera or wear the watch and change the battery when it died.
Imagine being able to treat your digital camera like that?
Youd never need to switch it off; just let it sleep, ready to roll.
You could go on a long weekend break without taking any chargers.
“These applications can reach farming, buildings, smart-cities…basically everything with which we interact.”
There are also plenty of devices that are difficult to keep charged.
Or how about wearable health monitors?
Or GPS alarm systems for bicycles?
Will Batteries Ever Get Better?
There are already several alternatives to batteries.
Somelikehydrogen fuel cellsare impractical for small consumer electronics (although you could use oneas an external battery pack).
And others have tradeoffs that may or may not make sense, depending on their use.
A better hope comes fromAustralian researchers at Monash Universityin Melbourne.
They have developed a lithium-sulfur battery “capable of powering a smartphone for five continuous days.”
The battery also could power an electric vehicle for over 600 miles.
Lithium isexpensive to recycle(compared to extracting it) and uses a lot of water to extract.
So much water, in fact, thatsome nearby farmers and communities are left without enough.
As ever, the desire for long-lived batteries is stronger than our ability to create them.
But equally important is the environmental impact of battery power.
