3. Pee-Powered Battery
Image via Aqua Power System
Rechargeable batteries are great, but only if you have a device with which to charge them, and an electrical outlet from which to draw the power. Chances are, when your batteries crap out, you’ll be far away from both. Good thing Japanese company Aqua Power System came up with AA and AAA batteries that can be charged using any liquid. Even liquids you, um, make yourself. According to Treehugger, the NoPoPo battery is supposed to last 10 years, and pumps out 500 milliamp-hours (mAh), which is equivalent to zinc-carbon batteries but a third of what an alkaline does.
4. DIY Solar-Powered Batteries
Image via Knut Karlsen
We’ve featured solar chargers that can power just about any kind of device, but this might be the first time we’ve seen solar power used to juice up the batteries themselves. Designer Knut Karlsen wondered why there still weren’t any with integrated solar cells on the market, so he set about creating one himself. “I had some older NiMH rechargeable batteries that i glued the flexible Photo Voltaic (PV) cells onto. The PV cells are rated at 1.8V and the batteries are 1.5V so they match quite well,” writes Karlsen on his blog. He then used a conductive silver pen and some flat wires from a broken canon lens to make a connection to the PV cell. It’s still a rough draft, but a promising (and cheap) one.
What kind of batteries would you like to see in the next 5-10 years? Tell us in the comments!
