A Handheld "Power Plant"

If you're frustrated with the poor battery life of your devices, and you're always hauling cords around to charge everything, Nectar could be your solution. Developed by the team at Lilliputian, Nectar will charge any of your USB 2.0 compatible devices on the go — giving you two weeks to a month of power in one portable, recyclable power pod. In other words, you no longer have to search for wall plug-ins at cafes, or disable apps on your phone to save battery life. With Nectar, you are completely self-reliant.

Q&A With Mouli Ramani, VP Marketing and Business Development at Lilliputian

"Think about something a littler smaller than the size of a nine-volt battery — that gives you a pretty good concept of the size of our silicon power cell. In that really small package, you literally have a power plant. The way we accomplish that is by using what is called a solid oxide fuel cell. "Silicon power cell" is our term — our brand word around this product — but the core technology is a micro-solid oxide fuel cell."

"How it works is like this: We pump gas (literally butene but it can be any hydrocarbon) into that really small package. We mix it with air, and our little "secret sauce" inside, which then turns into electricity. We're able to capture that electricity and put it out on small thermocouples (or leafs) on the end of a battery. We drive whatever we want. So, unlike a nuclear power plant or a coal power plant, we are actually working with power that is good for cell phones, digital camera, laptops — really for any consumer electronics. That's the focus."

"The biggest advantage of our silicon cell is that it is really, really small and therefore portable. You can have power with you wherever you go. The second advantage is that it is very light — 10 times lighter and five times smaller than batteries — another feature that lends to portability. The third advantage is that, due to the small size and the silicon power cell, it can scale down costs very quickly and be made very, very cheaply. "

"That's the core technology. We've taken that silicon power cell and put it in our first product, the Nectar — but we also envision working with consumer electronics companies to integrate this into their next generation products. It's 10 times better than the technologies they have right now."

"You're still living with a plug in your pocket. Right now, I'll bet that if you open your purse or your laptop bag, there is a plug/some kind of USB port to charge your phone."

"You are literally carrying one wire in this wireless world. And we're going to cut that last wire.
It will revolutionize the way the industry approaches power, and that's going to lead to entirely new waves of innovation. If I have to pinpoint an impact, I'd say that, on the consumer side, it is going to provide the freedom to use phones/devices the way consumers want to. From an industry perspective, it's going to take away the power of constraint and unleash a new level of creativity."


To read more about this cool gadget, visit: http://mashable.com/2013/09/24/nectar-power/