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As flexible displays become more practical and devices begin to come out, flexible batteries will be necessary to provide power to wearable computing devices.
Problems with Energy Storage Storing energy well has always been an issue, and it is one that limits alternative energy technologies, alternative transportation systems, and mobile technologies. Solar cells and wind power can generate electricity, but the electricity they generate has proven difficult to store for use in cars or to power homes at night and in calm weather. Even batteries used by the leading electric vehicles today, like the Tesla Model S, can only last a few hours on a given charge. This is a problem for anyone on a long drive, such as a cross country road trip, and Tesla is trying to solve the problem with an abundance of free solar-powered charging stations. Compared with the high energy and power densities of gasoline per volume, batteries and ultracapacitors cannot keep up, particularly in the field of refueling. A tank of gasoline can take a few minutes to refuel, and then supply energy to a car for several hundred miles. The highest end Tesla Model S can drive around 275 miles before needing a recharge, though the charge of lower end batteries lasts closer to 160 miles. Batteries take hours to charge in many cases, and the expensive costs of each cell make it difficult to own multiple batteries to swap in and out at will. And even the highest quality batteries need to be replaced within a decade.
How Batteries are Changing
1: iPhone 5 Lithium Polymer Battery Âą Figure (courtesy of Wikimedia user MyXyloto)
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Recently, phone and laptop manufacturers, including HTC and Apple, have decided to fuse their products’ backs and undersides on, removing the ability of users to replace