A teenager from Saratoga, California developed a tiny device capable of charging a cellphone or other portable devices within 20 to 30 seconds.
Eesha Khare is the inventor of the super fast charging gadget known as super-capacitor. She won the Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award of $50,000 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair held in Phoenix last week.
The device powers a light emitting diode (LED) and it fits inside cellphone batteries with the potential application for car batteries. It has the ability to hold energy for a long period with 10,000 charge-recharge cycles compared with the standard rechargeable battery with only 1,000 times.
When asked by NBC News what motivated her to develop the device, Khare said, “My cellphone battery always dies.” Khare added that super-capacitors provided an opportunity for her to focus her interest in nanochemistry-“really working at the nanoscale to make significant advances in many different fields.”
Eesha Khare’s Thoughts For Her Gadget
Furthermore, Khare believes that the device she invented is not only useful for cellphones, but it also applicable to other electronic devices. According to her, “It is also flexible, so it can be used in rollup displays and clothing and fabric. It has a lot of different applications and advantages over batteries in that sense.”
Khare’s Project entitled “Design and Synthesis of Hydrogenated TiO2-Polyaniline Nanorods for Flexible High-Performance Supercapacitors” aims to develop efficient-energy storage technology to meet the rapid growth of portable devices by designing and synthesizing a super-capacitor with increased energy density while maintaining power density and long cycle life.
She used the laboratory equipments at the University of California Santa Cruz in developing the device with the supervision of Dr. Yat Li.
Two other teenagers received awards at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. Ionut Budisteanu won the Gordon E. Moore Award of $75,000 for creating a practical model for low-cost, self-driving car using artificial intelligence. His invention has the ability to detect traffic lanes and curbs with the real-time position of the car.
Henry Lin of Shreveport, Louisiana also won the Intel Young Scientist Award of $50,000 for providing scientists with valuable new data by stimulating thousands of clusters of galaxies. His data allowed scientists to further study and understand the mysteries of astrophysics: dark matter, dark energy and the balance of heating and cooling of massive objects in the universe.
Approximately 1,600 young scientists compete in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. The participants were chosen from 433 affiliate fairs in more than 70 countries, regions and territories.
In a statement, Wendy Hawkins, executive director of Intel Foundation said, “We support the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair because we believe that science and math are the foundation of innovation, which is imperative for global economic growth and advancing society.”
