A charger has been developed that can charge a mobile phone battery from empty to full in a staggering thirty seconds. A variant of it should also be able to charge electric cars in just three minutes.

The charger, which works with current smartphones, was developed by StoreDot, a start-up born from the nanotechnology department at Tel Aviv University. The demo was made using a Samsung Galaxy S4 with a large battery 8-months ago and more recently with a standard battery and smaller charger at CES 2015.

The superfast charging time was achieved using technology StoreDot has been developing. This includes biological semiconductors made from naturally occurring organic compounds known as peptides – short chains of amino acids - which are the building blocks of proteins. Similar to those used by body builders to grow bigger faster.

The prototype charger featured in the video is about the same size as a laptop charger. StoreDot says its currently working on reducing the size of the charger. The end result should be a small unit that costs double the price of an average charger – so about £20.

StoreDot is aiming to sell its superfast chargers in 2017.

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