An 18-year-old Indian-American girl Eesha Khare has invented a super-capacitor device that could potentially charge a cellphone in less than 20 seconds.
Eesha Khare from Saratoga, California, was awarded the Young Scientist Award by the Intel Foundation for developing a tiny device that fits inside mobile phone batteries and charges them in 20-30 seconds.
The so-called super-capacitor, a gizmo that can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges quickly and holds the charge for a long time
According to Khare, the device lasts for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles as against 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries.
“My cellphone battery always dies,” she said when asked about what inspired her to work on the energy-storage technology. Super-capacitors allowed her to focus on her interest in nanochemistry and “really work at the nanoscale to make significant advances in many different fields.”