Although battery technology has evolved gradually over the past few years, it is struggling to keep pace with the demands of modern smartphones. Space constraints and the complications of charge/discharge tolerances currently make the small computers we power with Li-Ion cells a convenience we pay for in short, multi-hour runtimes and long charge cycles. In recent years, however, advances in graphene manufacturing technology have produced some of the first commercially available graphene-enhanced power banks that promise to provide at least some relief from this dilemma. P>
Graphene is a single atom layer of carbon. Although it is made of the same substance as the graphite in pencil cores, because it is so thin that it only takes up about two dimensions of space, it also acts as a superconductor of electricity. This is very valuable because most of the materials we use to conduct electricity have some resistance, which forces us to use larger volumes (for example, making thicker copper cables to pass current at a higher amperage) large heat sink and air cooling unit above a powerful chip) to dissipate heat.
Currently, we cannot find any commercially available smartphones with graphene-enhanced batteries, which means that these power banks are limited to fast charging. However, they will not supply the same current to smartphones because a normal battery would be damaged by a charging cycle which occurs at around 60 watts. All of these power banks can be charged in less than an hour, which is impressive considering how much capacity they can hold.
In the future, phone makers may take notice of these products and start making devices that can reach similar current levels during a charge without causing damage. For the time being, they will probably take small steps in this direction.
