Faster Charging Samsung Phones on the Horizon
One of the most significant complaints from commercial phone users is the speed with which smartphones utilize their batteries. Samsung has risen to the demand by releasing a new battery rumored to use graphene technology. Observers claim that the battery can go from empty to a full charge in as little as thirty minutes. The battery is slated for release in 2020, or early 2021 and users of Samsung phones are eagerly awaiting it.
At current, lithium-ion technology is used to build the batteries of phones, and these take a bit longer to charge. Even the most efficient cells can take up to an hour to load. Faster charging technology means that users have less down-time with their handsets. The implications for application use and phone consumption are immense since users usually prefer not to use their phone while charging. Some users switch the handset off completely to promote faster charge times.
Long Development Cycle
Samsung’s experimentation with graphene technology in batteries was announced in 2017, with the statement that, in theory, a battery built out of graphene would only need twelve minutes to charge fully. The 30-minute charge time is still distant of twelve minutes, but it’s an entire order of magnitude better than the current lithium-ion battery systems that exist today. Graphene is known to be up to 100 times more effective at conducting electricity than copper.
Despite the shorter charge time, there isn’t much evidence as to whether graphene will extend the life of battery systems in smartphones. Lithium-ion phone batteries have an expected lifetime of between three hundred to five hundred charge cycles or about two to three years. Graphene battery technology hasn’t been around long enough to compare it to Li-on batteries. However, with a faster charging speed and potentially lower construction cost, it’s something for smartphone users around the world to take notice of. If Samsung’s foray into graphene batteries is successful, other manufacturers are likely to follow with their own iterations before too long.
