Recharging a battery is basically reversing the process described above.  There have been attempts in the past to recharge alkaline batteries, but none were very successful because it had not been done properly.  Recharging alkalines can be downright dangerous when not done right.  The batteries can overheat causing a buildup of gas inside the battery canister therefore causing potassium hydroxide (KOH) leakage, or in a worst case scenario, it could explode.  Potassium hydroxide is highly corrosive substance and can cause damage to the eyes and skin.

The company WattsClever has come up with a smart charger for alkalines.  Since overheating is the main concern for recharging these batteries, “a full set of safety features are built in, these includes overcharging protection, over heating protection, and battery type protection. Additionally the LED lights on the product will indicate clearly when charging is completed along with other functions.”

via WattsClever

Not only will this technology eliminate the bulky bricks.  The technology could make servers, laptops, and electric vehicles more efficient.  Energy is wasted when converting between AC and DC power in the form of heat.

Transphorm’s new technology is based on gallium nitride rather than silicon.  Gallium nitride is a semiconductor that wastes far less energy than silicon.  Because they are so much more efficient, no bulky heat sinks or fans are needed.  They hope to eliminate wasted electicity by up to 90%.

Transform will test its new technologies in data centers first where heat sinks, fans, and massive cooling systems could benefit greatly from the gallium nitride technology.  They also hope to help in the efficiency of solar panels and project they could improve light conversion from 2-4 percentage points.  That doesn’t seem like a lot, but this is in an industry when .5% improvement is considered very good.

via technology review

A company called Eamex in Osaka, Japan discovered a major weakness in Lithium Ion Batteries, and fixing this problem could allow them to be used for 20 years or 10,000 charges.  The secret, they have found, is in the tin used in the battery’s negative electrode.  Apparently it weakens through many cycles of charging and recharging.  The new design will use a tin-coated resin that will stabilize the electrode and prevent it from wearing down.  Well that was easy enough.

via engadget

She was looking to catch the problem on the front end, and she might be on to something.  Zheng designed a phone for Nokia that would run on Coke.  Running a fuel cell on sugar water is nothing new, but the tandem of Coke and Nokia could make a big splash.

As the battery dies, it “generates electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar) and utilizes enzymes as the catalyst.”  The only waste products are oxygen and water.  Furthermore, it is speculated that the bio battery could last 3-4 times longer than a traditional lithium battery.  Just think…everyone on earth drinks coke.  This technology could go a long way to helping 3rd world countries develop and communicate.  Perhaps this is the mobile phone equivalent of solar hair.

via daizizheng.com

(A) Heating one side of a conductive rod causes heated electrons to move to the other end, creating a voltage. (B) Heating one side of a magnetized nickel-iron rod creates a “spin voltage,” with spin-up and spin-down electrons on opposite ends. Image credit: (c)2008 Nature.

Eiji Saitoh a physicist at Keio University in Yokohama, Japan, and his colleagues have published their results in a recent issue of Nature. As they explain, the term “spin Seebeck effect” comes from the original Seebeck effect, which is a thermoelectric phenomenon discovered by Thomas Johann Seebeck in the 1800s. The Seebeck effect states that, heating one side of a conducting rod causes electrons at that end to heat up and move toward the cooler side, creating a voltage.

The spin Seebeck effect is similar, but affects electron spin, which is the quantum physics equivalent of north-south magnetic alignment. When heating a magnetized metal, such as the nickel-iron rod, the researchers found that electrons with up spins (aligned with the rod´s magnetic field) congregated on the warmer side, while electrons with down spins (unaligned) preferred the cooler side.

Essentially, this spin-segregated rod now has two electrodes and serves as the basis for a new kind of battery that produces “spin voltage,” or magnetic currents, which have been difficult to produce. With this tool, physicists can work toward developing more kinds of spintronics devices that store information magnetically.

Magnetic information storage is inherently more efficient than storing information electronically because there is no waste heat. Unlike electrons that constantly bump into each other, flipping electron spins doesn´t generate heat. Reducing waste heat could lead to computer chip miniaturization, and would also mean lower power consumption and faster operational speeds.

“The spin Seebeck effect allows us to pass a pure spin current, a flow of electron spins without electric currents, over a long distance,” the authors wrote in their study. “These innovative capabilities will invigorate spintronics research.”

via sciencenews, physorg