The U.S. based start up firm, Batteroo, has invented a new gadget known as “Batteriser” that comprises of a stainless steel sleeve which is designed to extract the untapped power out of the used batteries. Each Batteriser sleeve is expected to cost around $2.50 (£1.63). Batteroo has unveiled its innovative extra slim Batteriser and they claim that this gadget would boost the life span of an used disposable battery by upto 8x or 800%. Batteroo explained that any new alkaline battery would generate 1.5 Volts for a specific time. However, gradually its voltage would drop to 1.4 Volts or even below and once this stage has been reached normally most of the devices would consider this battery to be ‘Dead’. Batteroo revealed this shocking fact that whenever we discard the so called spent batteries, we throw out something that has 80% of untapped energy left inside it! This is where the Batteriser sleeve comes in the picture with its amazing innovative voltage booster technology. In other words, it is as good as saying that most of the electronic equipment that are running on batteries would use only 20% of the energy stored in a battery and then they will write off the battery as ‘used’ or ‘dead’ or ‘spent’. Batteroo’s new device has been designed such that it can keep the voltage of spent batteries to a certain level due to which the electronic appliances will consider it as a new battery and not declare it as ‘dead’, hence with this technology going forward any normal battery would get a life span by almost eight times its normal span. Batteriser, is made of up an extra thin stainless steel sleeve which is just 0.1 mm in thickness and it can clip onto any kind of batteries of any make including the Torches, TV remotes, Console controller and even Bluetooth keyboards. While speaking to Jon Phillips, the Editor in Chief of PCWorld; Rob Roohparvar, an electrical engineer and a member of the Batteroo’s invention team said: “The Batteriser has boost circuitry that will boost the voltage from 0.6 volts to 1.5 volts and will maintain voltage at 1.5 – which is a brand new battery”. The Voltage booster technology is not a new concept, then why is Batteriser considered as a new invention? Batteriser needs to be considered as a new invention because Roohparvar and his team have successfully managed to compress it into a thin sleeve such that it can easily fit into any battery compartment. Roohparvar said: “The key is we have been able to miniaturize the boost circuit to a point that no one else has been able to achieve”. Roohparvar also demonstrated the working of Batteriser sleeve to Phillips: He took some ‘dead’ batteries which gave a 1.3 volt output and slotted them into a Bluetooth keyboard. As expected, the keyboard did not notice these batteries because from the keyboard point of view these are spent batteries and hence it did not operate. Now these batteries were removed from the Bluetooth keyboard and fitted with the Batteriser sleeves so as to boost the voltage to 1.5 Volts i.e. up from its actual 1.3 Volts and now it was slotted back to the Bluetooth keyboard. Amazingly, the device started working. A surprised Phillips reported: “Voila:The Mac reported the battery level at 100 percent”. Dr Kiumars Parvin, a materials scientist specialist in magnetism at San Jose State University, had been asked to independently check the authenticity of the results. Dr Parvin concluded that: “We tested the Batteriser sleeve in our lab and we confirmed that the Batteriser taps into the 80 percent of energy that is usually thrown away”. With regards to the query of whether the Batteriser sleeve can be used for rechargeable batteries, Roohparvar confirmed that the Batteriser will definitely work with the rechargeable batteries which has dropped to 1.2 Volt outputs. He further added that for the rechargeable batteries the Batteriser sleeves would be sold in packs of four and thus will be made available at a cost of $10. As of now, Batteriser will be available for sale from September 2015 and the start up will probably launch their crowd funding Indiegogo campaign by end of this month. The Batteriser sleeve is available right from AA, AAA, C to D cell batteries. With its ‘intelligent voltage management and delivery mechanism’ Batteriser might actually succeed in reducing the harm that is caused to the environment by considerably reducing the total number of batteries that are thrown away and ultimately used as landfills. Thus Batteroo might actually help in making the environment more greener and also save a lots of money by utilizing the untapped and waste power from the batteries.
