Power banks are useful, especially when the battery on your smartphone has been gobbled up by too much browsing or streaming. However, they don’t normally get the pulse racing. ElecJet is a company that would like to change that view by releasing what it calls: “the world’s fastest charging power bank”.
The founders behind the project have been working out how to make power banks that can charge faster and have developed the ElecJet Apollo Ultra, a power bank that can be charged in as little as 27 minutes and will hold a charge sufficient to charge a smartphone three times over.
Developed by UC Berkeley alumni, Sam Gong, ElecJet’s Apollo Ultra is billed as the first power bank to use real graphene on a scale large enough to deliver ultra-fast charging and long service life. Graphene is a super material and an allotrope of carbon that’s made up of a layer of atoms arranged in a two-dimensional honeycomb nanostructure. It has exceptional strength, provides excellent conductivity and is the thinnest two-dimensional material in the world.
Graphene was isolated and characterized back in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, working at the University of Manchester. The two men received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010. At just a single atom thick, graphene is a near-perfect conductor of electricity and can charge much more quickly and last much longer compared to regular lithium-ion batteries. Graphene also conducts heat more evenly and cools more effectively.
As well as providing faster-charging speeds, the graphene used in the ElecJet Apollo Ultra is more sustainable and environmentally friendly because it can be charged up to 2,500 times, as opposed to the typical 500 cycles of lithium-ion batteries. On paper, the batteries in the Apollo Ultra will last five times longer than lithium-ion batteries and so has a lower environmental impact.
According to ElecJet, the real power of a battery is expressed in the C rate and not its wattage. The C rate is the time it takes to completely charge or discharge a battery. 1C is 60 minutes, 3C is 20 minutes (or 1 hour divided by 3), 0.5C is 2 hours (or an hour divided by 0.5). The higher the C rate, the faster the battery speed. Size doesn’t affect the speed of charging as the C Rate and battery power is a ratio relative to the battery’s capacity.
The ElecJet Apollo Ultra has two USB ports. One of the ports is USB-C and the other is USB A. The USB-C port is used to charge up the power bank with a GaN charger. The USB-C port can also output up to 65W of power, while the USB-A port can deliver a maximum of 18W of power, making it ideal for phones and tablets. However, for me, the nicest feature is the cute OLED display on the front of the case which shows the charge remaining in the power bank.
I haven’t been able to fully test the ElectJet Apollo Ultra so cannot provide test figures but if you’re interested in getting one via IndieGoGo, then the project is now live.
Pricing & Availability: The ElecJet Apollo Ultra goes live on IndieGoGo on November 14 and will cost $59.
More info: here
Tech Specs:
- Battery Capacity: 10,000 mAh or 40 Wh
- Full charging time: 27 minutes (37 minutes on hand-made prototype demos)
- USB ports: 1 x USB A and 1 x USB C
- Input USB-C: 5V / 3A, 9V / 3A, 12V / 3A, 15V / 3A, 20V / 3.25A
- Output USB-C: PD: 5V/3A, 9V/3A, 12V/3A, 15V/3A, 20V/3.25A
- PPS (Samsung Fast Charge): 3.3 – 11V/5A, 3.3 – 21V / 3.25A
- Output USB A: 5V/3A, 9V/2A, 12V/1.5A
- Life cycles: +2,500 cycles
- Certifications: UL1642, UL2056, CE, FCC, IEC
- Dimensions: 130 x 68 x 17mm
- Weight : 256g
Note: The original launch of this project was delayed for technical reasons with IndieGoGo so is being posted here again.
