Israeli start-up develops 30-second battery charger

Using nanotechnology, an Israeli firm has created a new material inspired by nature that can charge smartphones in a matter of seconds. The Israeli company StoreDot unveiled earlier this week a prototype for a new kind of battery based on amino acids and peptides, the basic building blocks of nature. The idea to use these kind of natural chemical compounds started when one of the founders, professor Gil Rosenman, was researching a cure for Alzheimer at the Tel Aviv University ten years ago. "Professor Rosenman and his team were able to isolate specific amino acids that interfered in the brain's electrical charge, so when we began working together, we saw that we could create nanocrystals from these amino acids, that could charge devices much faster that regular batteries," said Dr. Doron Myersdorf, CEO and cofounder of StoreDot. These tiny conductive nanocrystals can charge the battery of a smartphone from zero percent to one hundred percent in half a minute, providing up to two hours of battery. "We're working to improve the time to allow the user to have a full charge the whole day, not just two or three hours and we are also trying to shrink the size of the battery itself," Myersdorf said. The size of the actual battery and charge is similar now to that of a laptop computer, but the firm believes that it will take only one year to bring it down to a regular size. According to the firm, the secret of this super battery is not so much in the elements it uses, but rather the way they were manipulated. The team is now focused on improving their prototype, but is planning to work on other related usages of these battery, like laptop computers and electric cars.