Another student makes supercapacitor!:

Originally posted by sonhouse
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-high-school-student-supercapacitor-young.html#ajTabs

Cell phone charges in less than a minute! Wins $50K!

I wish the artcle would have mentioned a little something about the Amp Hour capacity for a single charge.

Originally posted by joe beyser
I wish the artcle would have mentioned a little something about the Amp Hour capacity for a single charge.

I imagine the paper for the exhibit would say the power ratings. They didn't say how long the cell phone would run on that supply either. My own smart phone runs several days on a full charge, an HTC windows phone. When I first got it the time was limited to just a few hours but the key was getting rid of a bunch of built in apps that were about as useful as tits on a boar hog. It came loaded with crap like HP desktops.

Originally posted by sonhouse
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-high-school-student-supercapacitor-young.html#ajTabs

Cell phone charges in less than a minute! Wins $50K!

it must be a dangerous hobby making a supercapacitor ..... might lightning bolt next doors cat or something ... i worked in a camera store ages ago and got a shock of one used for a flash and it sent me flying!

Originally posted by e4chris
it must be a dangerous hobby making a supercapacitor ..... might lightning bolt next doors cat or something ... i worked in a camera store ages ago and got a shock of one used for a flash and it sent me flying!

Flash camera's have evolved past the need for those 300 volt power supplies, now the flash is done by LED's running a few volts. No shocks from those dudes. Anyway, supercapacitors are only capable of holding a couple of volts, they break down with anything higher so there is not much chance of shock. You might ruin a knife though if you short out the contacts with a small knife, a very large current surge will go through the knife and maybe melt part of it. Kind of like putting it across a 12 volt car battery.
The thing about super caps that make it useful is the ability to charge and discharge a LOT faster than batteries. So if you have super caps and batteries together in a car, for instance, you can have the super cap charged up to give your car a power boost on acceleration or going up a hill and that charge will be used up pretty fast so it is a short term thing but it works well inside those parameters.