Future battery

It’s a solar cell! No… it’s a rechargeable lithium-air battery! No… wait… it’s both: It’s the world’s first all-in-one solar battery! This is significant, because one of the biggest problems with wide-scale solar power deployment is that you also need huge banks of batteries to store electricity. An integrated solution is both cheaper and more efficient — about 25% cheaper and 20% more efficient, according to the researchers. http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/191438-this-air-breathing-solar-panel-stores-its-own-electricity-cutting-the-cost-of-solar-power-significantly

"The state of the art is to use a solar panel to capture the light, and then use a cheap battery to store the energy," explains OSU professor Yiying Wu. "We've integrated both functions into one device. Any time you can do that, you reduce cost."

This new design uses three electrodes, as opposed to the usual four. At the bottom lies a lithium plate, upon which lie a layer of electrolyte, a thin sheet of porous carbon and then another layer of electrolyte. At the top, a permeable titanium gauze mesh houses a dye-sensitive titanium dioxide photo electrode, which looks rather like blades of grass at the 1 mm scale and generates trioxide ions under illumination. These ions then spread to the oxygen electrode surface via an iodide "shuttle," where they oxidize into lithium peroxide.
Electrons in the connected battery chemically decompose the lithium peroxide into lithium ions and oxygen, with the oxygen released into the air and lithium ions stored as lithium metal. When the battery discharges, it pulls oxygen from the surrounding environment and consumes it to re-form lithium peroxide – after which the cycle can repeat again. http://www.gizmag.com/solar-cell-battery-hybrid/34119/
         Actually, we said nothing of the kind, but we were thinking about it. Over the past few months we’ve reviewed a few portable solar chargers (also here and here), and some commenters have blown them off as expensive toys.
That pretty much nails the state of play now, but those of you who are old enough to have experienced high school in the 1970′s may recall that when pocket calculators were first introduced, only the rich kids had them. Also, all they could do was calculate.
Fast forward to this generation, and now an even smaller device — your cell phone — can do all of those functions along with however many apps you download to say nothing of the camera and the phone. That can still be a pricey package but if all you want is a pocket calculator, those are practically free.
We’re also thinking that the technology will bump up as portable solar car chargers and other more powerful, transportable solar systems enter the marketplace.
Drop a note in the comment thread if you have some thoughts about the e-waste issues raised by portable solar chargers, but after hearing about this new air battery/solar combo we’re even more convinced that portable solar chargers will follow a similar path to affordability and versatility. cleantechnica.com/2014/10/03/worlds-first-breathing-solar-battery/
            This wonderful invention should be out soon and it would a wonderful addition to our life. It will be able to power up unless we run out of plants. So lets keep it alive and get the charger.