The Oxford-based startup Zapgocharger Ltd has recently gone public with a crowdfunding initiative to raise money for the development and production of the Zap&Go portable charger for phones and tablets. The charger is meant to sport a graphene supercapacitor which will enable on-the-go charging of the device after plugging the charger into a specialized power supply for just 5 minutes (the charger will reportedly be able to take a 1,500mAh charge).
At the time this post was written, the company has already reached (more than doubled, actually!) their $30,000 goal. The Zap&Go charger’s launching price will reportedly be $150, but it is now offered at $99. Estimated delivery, as per the company, is October 2015.
The company’s idea is based on relying on supercapacitors’ ability to charge very quickly and using them as a replacement for a traditional battery charger. To avoid overly large and clumsy supercapacitors that hinder their use as portable chargers, Zap&Go chargers will use graphene instead of aluminum foils. As graphene is more conductive than aluminum, the capacitor can be made thin and light.
Not long ago (in January 2014, to be exact), the British company Cientifica signed an exclusivity agreement with London Graphene Ltd to develop a technology for graphene-based energy storage. London graphene has apparently changed its name to Zapgocharger since then, and reportedly licensed patents for CVD graphene which helped in the development of this product.