I was reading some science news when this story published at Science Daily caught my eye with this opening paragraph about a breakthrough in battery technology "Though they be but little, they are fierce. The most powerful batteries on the planet are only a few millimeters in size, yet they pack such a punch that a driver could use a cellphone powered by these batteries to jump-start a dead car battery -- and then recharge the phone in the blink of an eye."

I'm sure you will also follow since most human beings right now in the world have a thirst for more and portable battery power, whether you are an airsofter who prefers to stick with AEGs,  the soldier in the field who has a lot of devices to power, or that isolated farmer somewhere in Africa who uses his cellphone to check market rates for his produce, or being part of a small village which need basic energy to light up surroundings when it gets dark. Batteries are playing a very important part of our lives, especially in this hyperactive,  always on, and always connected world.

Reading through the article, it explains that powering up devices is always a compromise between power and energy. Power for devices that need to transmit such as communications devices and electric machines such as Electric Vehicles (EVs) that they need bursts of energy and thus quickly exhausting power the power source, in this case the battery. Energy for powering radios to listen to news power sources can release  their energy slowly

The research team, led by William P. King, Bliss Professor of mechanical science and engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (pictured below), say that the microbatteries offer both power and energy  with their method of integrating the cathode and anode (components of batteries) at the microscale level to make these powerful batteries. With such equal provision of power and energy, the microbatteries can be used in multiple applications.

While the examples mentioned are those that are usually vital applications such as medical devices. To explain further, the story says:

"With so much power, the batteries could enable sensors or radio signals that broadcast 30 times farther, or devices 30 times smaller. The batteries are rechargeable and can charge 1,000 times faster than competing technologies – imagine juicing up a credit-card-thin phone in less than a second. In addition to consumer electronics, medical devices, lasers, sensors and other applications could see leaps forward in technology with such power sources available."

It's now a question of developing the batteries to a commercial scale that will allow further research and development. But the most immediate benefits of microbatteries will be on weight and space. Weight since these are light, packing them more to produce the required power and energy won't take a lot weight. Space since these are microbatteries, they allow industrial and product designers to allocate space freed up to even more features or help in reducing the weight of electronic devices.

This allows our imaginations to run freely in airsoft too as one of the major hurdles in AEG design is the placement of batteries needed to power up the AEG motor. There will be more room for them to be placed without compromising design and will also help lighten the weight of the airsoft guns we're carrying and the electronic devices that we bear such as taclights, GPS, helmet cameras, and tactical radios. Such benefit can be the same for the real world soldier, and it will go even more.

Such breakthroughs are welcome, in a world that is getting smaller but its energy needs are just growing exponentially. Let’s hope that such innovations get the sustained and funded further to grow for commercial purposes to make them widely available.