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California teenager invents device that can charge cell phone in 20 seconds - flat
Catholic Online ^ | May 20, 2013

Posted on 05/21/2013 2:21:17 PM PDT by NYer

Called the supercapacitor, this revolutionary device can charge cell phones within 20 seconds. The brainchild of 18-year-old Esha Khare of Saratoga, California, the lucky teen collected $50,000 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Arizona this week.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic online) - The device is sure to make waiting around for your cell phone to recharge a thing of the past, In addition, the gizmo packs more energy into a smaller space than traditional phone batteries -- and holds the charge longer.

Khare traveled from her California home to Phoenix last week for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, where her invention was honored as one of two winners of Young Scientist Awards.

"I'm in a daze. I can't believe this happened," Khare, a senior at Lynbrook High School in Saratoga, she told reporters.

Khare has only used her supercapacitor to power a light-emitting diode or LED. She envisions a bright future that one day will see her invention powering cell phones, cars and any gadget that requires a rechargeable battery.

On her way to Harvard, Khare told TV journalists that this is only the start and that she will "be setting the world on fire" from here.

Specializing in nano-chemistry, Khare was able to reduce the size of her invention. "Really working at the nano-scale to make significant advances in many different fields," she says.
 
"It is also flexible, so it can be used in rollup displays and clothing and fabric," Khare added. "It has a lot of different applications and advantages over batteries in that sense."

Flexible and tiny, the supercapacitor is able to handle 10,000 recharge cycles, more than normal batteries by a factor of 10.

(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: cellphone; engineer; intel; supercapacitor
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To: NYer

Is there a working model of this device?


21 posted on 05/21/2013 2:36:16 PM PDT by wrench
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To: Blood of Tyrants; CodeToad

My impression is that this capacitor is supposed to replace the battery in the cell phone (in other words be the battery) and that the capacitor can be charged in 20 seconds - but that is unclear...


22 posted on 05/21/2013 2:36:54 PM PDT by DB
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To: NYer

...and the litigation lawyers break out in song and dance.

It’s called “Make money by charging batteries so fast they catch on fire”.


23 posted on 05/21/2013 2:37:00 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I can neither confirm or deny that; even if I could, I couldn't - it's classified.)
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To: DB

That makes more sense. But capacitors are limited in the amount of energy can store by their physical size. I used to know the formula to calculate the capacitance given a number of dimensions, but that is long forgotten.


24 posted on 05/21/2013 2:39:52 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (Inside every liberal and WOD defender is a totalitarian screaming to get out.)
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To: Secret Agent Man

I have a rapid recharger for some rechargeable batteries I use often. They first drain the charge, then charge 4 batteries at once, in about 10-12 minutes. There is a fan constantly blowing air across these batteries. they get very hot even with airflow. After charging is over the fan will still keep going for 10-15 minutes if you don’t remove them.

They get very, very hot, even across 10-12 minutes and a dedicated fan to keep them cooler. 20 seconds, I just see fires starting.


25 posted on 05/21/2013 2:40:01 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I can neither confirm or deny that; even if I could, I couldn't - it's classified.)
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To: NYer

Better dead than Crimson. GO MIT!


26 posted on 05/21/2013 2:43:26 PM PDT by Huskrrrr
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To: NYer
"...the lucky teen collected $50,000 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Arizona this week."

I find that objectionable. But I'd bet 47% of the population will see it just that way.

27 posted on 05/21/2013 2:44:55 PM PDT by Roccus
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To: mwilli20

A capacitor that can store enough energy with reasonable leakage can be used as a “battery”. The primary difference being batteries exchange energy between chemical and electrical to store energy efficiently while the capacitor simply stores an electrical charge directly without any chemical conversion. Batteries are used simply because they have much higher power densities verses current super capacitors. Maybe she’s made a major improvement on that.


28 posted on 05/21/2013 2:47:07 PM PDT by DB
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To: NYer; All

The device is a nano-technology based capacitor that replaces the rechargable battery in a cell phone.


29 posted on 05/21/2013 2:48:03 PM PDT by Amendment10
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To: NYer

Look for cell phones to start exploding soon :o)


30 posted on 05/21/2013 2:48:04 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: editor-surveyor

Look for cell phones to start exploding soon :o)

my first thought


31 posted on 05/21/2013 2:50:39 PM PDT by molson209
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Web search for “lithium battery fire” to see what will happen if you do this to your cell phone.

If she’s invented a new form of magic cap, that would be nice, but I wouldn’t use it to charge my phone. Maybe to replace the battery *in* my phone, but that’s another matter.

As a side exercise ... consider this - think about circumstances and events where the media has reported on something you actually know about. How poor was the reporting?

And yet people trust the media to report to them on things that they don’t know about directly with any amount of accuracy or clarity???


32 posted on 05/21/2013 2:53:01 PM PDT by Kommodor (Terrorist, Journalist or Democrat? I can't tell the difference.)
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To: Blood of Tyrants

For capacitors it is all about plate surface area and distance between electrodes (the thickness of the dielectric between the electrodes). I think the limits are primarily due to materials and methods to maximize surface area.


33 posted on 05/21/2013 2:53:51 PM PDT by DB
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To: DB

When I was in high school we used to go to military surplus sales to buy capacitors from radar power supplies, which we would charge up with flashlight batteries, and then leave sitting on desks and counters...


34 posted on 05/21/2013 3:04:17 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
I imagine the mom is a stay at home housewife and the dad runs a struggling car repair shop.

Actually, her father is an engineer who works for Intel!

http://www.patentbuddy.com/Inventor/Khare-Manoj/437721

Sounds fishy

35 posted on 05/21/2013 3:08:27 PM PDT by Second Amendment First
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To: NYer

SuperCapacitor Bump!

Just don’t lick them.


36 posted on 05/21/2013 3:10:40 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
I imagine the mom is a stay at home housewife and the dad runs a struggling car repair shop.

She's from Saratoga. That's a ritzy area. More likely her dad is a Silicon Valley executive or a professor at Stanford.

37 posted on 05/21/2013 3:10:48 PM PDT by BigBobber
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To: NYer

Well, I’m all in favor of young people being recognized for scientific accomplishments, but you don’t have to be Einstein to find this story long on hype and short on facts, with regard to the device she “invented”.

Supercapacitors are hardly new: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor

and while it’s possible that an 18 year old discovered something that hundreds or thousands of engineers and researchers working in this field have overlooked, wouldn’t it have been interesting if the report had talked about that?

But I guess that’s the difference between Catholic Online and, say, Nature or Science...


38 posted on 05/21/2013 3:11:27 PM PDT by bigbob
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To: who_would_fardels_bear
I would like to know what her mom and dad do for a living. I imagine the mom is a stay at home housewife and the dad runs a struggling car repair shop.

Bizarre question/assumptions. Here in my town we have a very similar situation -- East Indian high school girl also working in the area of nano technology. Just qualified for the national science fair. May have met this young lady by now. Both parents are scientists at a national laboratory.

39 posted on 05/21/2013 3:11:35 PM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by Nature, not Nurture™)
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To: editor-surveyor

Just buy a new battery from Boeing.


40 posted on 05/21/2013 3:12:19 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi)
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