Now the time has come when you can do away with the battery of your mobile phone. A new material promises to transform the entire device of your phone into a super-battery, so you do not need batteries any longer.

Researchers have managed to combine the best features of batteries and super-capacitors into one single hybrid material. When made into a case suitable for the device, it can replace the battery. Although the energy density of the material does not yet stand up to that of a lithium-ion battery, it makes up for the lower density by the case being made up of a much larger volume. Additionally, the space that the battery normally occupies could now be taken up by the case.

Researchers call these hybrid capacitors. Actually, these batteries behave just like capacitors. They can maintain the ultra-long cycling lifetimes just as super capacitors do, but also store and deliver about as much energy as the current lithium-ion batteries can. Now they are trying to build this super-capacitor material into the structure of different types of constructions materials, such as sidings, drywalls of homes, chassis of airplanes and of course, cases of mobile phones.

One of the advantages in developing such energy storage materials that integrate into homes is the increase in the economic value of solar cells. These can be placed on the roof and they enable a distributed energy electric grid system.

Apple, in an independent research – for which they have filed a patent – have developed a photovoltaic touchscreen that harvests ambient light for keeping a mobile device with a super-capacitor case charged without a power cord.

Irrespective of the application, the purpose is to allow structural materials to store energy while retaining the same load-bearing durability. The structural materials thereby harbor inside them systems for storing energy and in many cases, their lifetime exceeds that of the objects for which they are acting as the building materials.

The major advantage here is that an extra battery compartment is no longer required. Either the device volume can be reduced by that extent or the structural material can double up for the redundant battery. Although these super-capacitors store about ten-percent less energy compared to lithium-ion batteries, they can make up for it in the volume where they are a part of the structure. Additionally, with an operating life more than a thousand times that of a battery, these super-capacitor-batteries are ideally suitable for mobile devices, homes, aircraft, automobiles, and more.

That makes eminent sense. What matters more is the total energy the product offers. With 10-percent less storage capacity, but distributed over a thousand discharge cycles, it means the material is capable of supplying 100-times more energy over the lifetime of the system. When such materials are used for building a home or the chassis of a car, it would be a nuisance if they required to be replaced every few years because they expired.

In the prototype, the super-battery had electrodes made of silicon wafers. One side of the wafers was covered with Nano scale pores and then with an ultra-thin layer of carbon. Between the two layers, is a polymer film holding charged ions much like an electrolyte in a battery. The whole structure is then solidified.