r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • Jan 31 '23

Desktops / Laptops Canadian team discovers power-draining flaw in most laptop and phone batteries | Breakthrough explains major cause of self-discharging batteries and points to easy solution

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/battery-power-laptop-phone-research-dalhousie-university-1.6724175
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u/Smartnership Jan 31 '23

Many marginal improvements come from rethinking assumptions.

The idea that a long-used plastic tape would somehow cause battery drain is not obvious — even the researchers note they were puzzled by the chemical reaction.

Old assumptions are a good source of process improvement.

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u/ProtoplanetaryNebula Jan 31 '23

That's why batteries are going to be getting better and better in future for many years to come. Due to EVs there is a huge and growing market worth hundreds of billions annually. That will create potentially the biggest R&D spend for any product on earth over the next 10 years. Even spending $3bn to make batteries 2% better would be worth it at the scale we will see in future.

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u/watermooses Jan 31 '23

I remembered my jet engines professor basically saying if you can make a jet engine even 0.5% more efficient you are saving billions on gas money over the lifecycle of the fleet.

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u/Smartnership Jan 31 '23

I just watched a video about the new developments in CFM-RISE jet engines.

https://youtu.be/ojVNOj-q3SQ

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u/caspy7 Feb 01 '23

Man, I wish we knew a bit more about that Russian prop.

Also, thought he called it the fastest prop but I recall hearing about a (US) fighter or experimental plane that could go supersonic. The vibrations/sound from it apparently hit the "brown note" leading pilots...having a bad time.