When our phone or computer runs out of battery when we need it most, it can leave us in a very helpless situation. So much so that the fact that the phone batteries only last 1 day is comforting, on the other hand, having to charge them 2-3 times a day causes our nerves to break down.
Even if there are fast charging options, why do we usually have to wait for hours to fill the battery of the phones? Instead, if we transfer all the energy that the phone needs to the battery as if we are getting fuel for our car, wouldn’t we have a fully charged battery in 2-3 minutes?
First of all, let’s solve the most fundamental misconception: Phone batteries are not tanks into which we fill electric current.
If they were anyway, your phone would be noticeably lighter when you ran out of charge. Rather, chemical reactions actually take place inside the batteries. Even now, the reaction in question is taking place while you are reading this content.
This reaction takes place in two ways, when charging and discharging:
In both cases, anode and cathode are used. The conductivity between them is provided by the electrolytes. During charging, the cathode gets a negative value, while the anode gets a positive value. In the meantime, electrons are exchanged. When you plug the device into the charger, you reverse the chemical reaction that occurs when you use the phone. The roles of anode and cathode are thus changed.
In short, things are a bit more complicated than loading electricity into the phone and spending it as you use it. Let’s continue with the simplest form though.
It is not possible for this reaction to occur all at once.
This is where the action-response rule comes into play. Let’s try to visualize it in your mind. On a road where there is no traffic, you can drive at your desired speed without seeing any resistance. But if the road is full, you will not be able to go that fast as there will be a resistance in front of you. Otherwise the results will be bad.
Electrons traveling on the battery are in motion while you charge and uncharge the device while you use it. Meanwhile, they are faced with the resistance coming from the conductor they are on. This also generates heat, which is why we feel the phone getting hot when charging it as well as when using it for normal daily work.
This resistance exists because of the limitations of today’s technology. Well, let’s say we still give the phone the current it needs for a full charge, what happens?
If twice the current is supplied to the phone than normal, the electrons will generate twice as much heat, again because of the resistance. When we try to charge the battery, which is filled in 1 hour, in 1 minute, this means roughly compressing the load that can be taken in 60 minutes to 1 minute. It is clear what will happen as a result.
At this point, you may have thought of Samsung’s exploding phone, the Galaxy Note 7. Normally, lithium phone batteries have circuits to prevent overheating. These circuits must also have a large enough area to dissipate heat effectively. This was also the issue where the Note 7 was missing and disastrously, it didn’t offer enough room for the circuitry and therefore was incapable of dissipating the heat.
Another important purpose of the circuit in question is to prevent thermal leakage:
This situation causes the heated system to burn again by being unable to dissipate the heat and thus feeding the existing one even more. In other words, as we have just said, the high amount of current given to the phone instantly will cause such a reaction and make the device unusable.
But in such a case, you don’t have to worry about your device. Because your hospital expenses will be more noticeable.
A method has recently been discovered that will quickly charge the batteries:
As a result of this study, which focused on electric vehicles, a method was found to solve the problem of lithium-ion batteries overheating under heavy load. Of course, those who carried out the study did not think of using a larger area for the battery. Instead, machine learning is expected to be the solution to problems.
As part of this study, the researchers saw how the charging time could be optimized for all types of batteries without damaging the batteries, and which charging methods would cause problems with different batteries. In the method used as a result of the analysis, the charge of an electric car battery was increased from 0 to 90 percent in just 10 minutes.
When we see this becoming widespread, it is an undoubted fact that electric vehicles will gain strength in competition. On the other hand, we expect to see the same development in smartphones.
Sources: Science Focus, The Guardian, Waste Time, Inquisitive Universe
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