Thanks to electronic devices such as smart watches or activity bracelets, we can continuously monitor our health in real time, in devices that, although they can generally last for several days, ultimately require regular charging to fully function.
And a team of researchers at the University of Surrey has developed a kind of rechargeable renewable battery. that only requires 30 seconds of sunlight to increase the duration and autonomy of future smart watches and other portable devices, and we are talking about an increase in duration of tens and tens of minutes.
They say it’s an environmentally friendly, photo-rechargeable system that combines ultra-fast, near-solid-state zinc-ion batteries with flexible perovskite solar cells.
Specifically, they introduced a protective nickel coating on zinc-ion micro-batteries that was optimized to stabilize the battery configuration and ultimately facilitate superior electrochemical performance.
And it is that embedded perovskite solar cells have shown excellent photovoltaic performance capable of charging batteries and thus creating a self-charging system, capable of offering much greater energy autonomy in portable electronic devices.
However, these integrated systems are able to achieve ultra-fast photo-charging in 30 seconds with enough energy to power electronic devices for tens of minutes more.
Director yunlong zhaoan expert in batteries for portable devices, comments that “Unique features of our ultra-fast photo-rechargeable system could promote broad applications in self-powered portable Internet of Things, autonomous power systems, and emergency electronics”.