Researchers at Trinity College in Dublin claim to have made a breakthrough that could triple the length of smartphone batteries.
The scientists say they've discovered a super strong material that could enhance the lifetime of a battery from 10 hours to 40 hours and also reduce its size.
The ink based nanomaterial could also increase the range of an electric car to more than 500 kilometres on a single charge - more than enough to get you from Cork to Letterkenny.
Existing batteries rely on internal chemical reactions to store and release energy.
Making batteries smaller, so that they can fit into our phones means less space for these chemical reactions to take place.
This has led to the search for a new technology to increase the amount of energy that can be stored.
Professor Valeria Nicolosi, AMBER lead Investigator on the project, and Professor of Nanomaterials & Advanced Microscopy at Trinity College Dublin, said: “Despite progress in batteries development there has been limited success in extending lifetime and improving their energy storage capabilities. A lot of it has to do with the need to look outside of box for solutions – specifically at new materials capable of surpassing the conventional technologies. A battery is made by two electrodes (anode and cathode) and a liquid electrolyte – this new research looks at improving the anode electrode and we are extremely excited by the potential of this new class of 2D nanomaterials”.
