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Providing energy for a lifetime

— Photo: S. Gopakumar

Battery-less life: A prototype of the battery-less UPS designed by students of Mary Matha College of Engineering and Technology, Neyyattinkara.

How about a UPS that nearly eliminates the need for recharging and provides uninterrupted supply of power.

Providing a futuristic glimpse is a ‘battery-less UPS’ developed by students of the Mary Matha College of Engineering and Technology, Neyyattinkara.

The device, designed as a part of their final year project, promises to make “batteries obsolete in the near future” and reduces the recharging time to a few minutes.

“While a conventional UPS requires several hours for re-charging, the battery-less UPS requires only five minutes,” explains S. Shyamkumar, lab instructor, who assisted Aravind Kumar A., Nevil Lopez, Sankar J. and Siyas Mohammed S., final year Electrical and Electronics students, in completing the project.

The 100 Volt Ampere prototype designed at a cost of Rs.30,000 has the capacity to run a CFL lamp for more than 10 minutes and a desktop computer for one-and-a-half minute.

“By scaling up its capacity, the UPS can be made available for commercial use as an environmentally safe alternative to batteries,” said Mr. Shyamkumar.

“The device also does not pose the risk of becoming redundant and unusable like batteries even if kept untouched for several years, making them an attractive option for cars.”

Moreover, unlike batteries that contain harmful lead and acid, the UPS designed by the students relies on a super capacitor to store energy. The super capacitor functions on nano-sized carbon tubes that are “abundantly available in nature”.

The expected life of a super capacitor is more than 100 years. There is also an inbuilt charge-controller for regulating heavy rush of current to the UPS while charging.

“Developing this inbuilt charge-controller was the real challenge as super capacitors require a separate charging system unlike batteries,” said Mr. Shyamkumar. This requirement for a separate charging system along with the cost of production limit the widespread use of super capacitors unlike conventional batteries.

However, despite the obvious challenges, the students are convinced that they have stumbled on a technology for the future.

“Super capacitors have already substituted batteries in certain hybrid cars. They also make an excellent replacement for batteries used in medical equipment due to the absence of harmful chemicals,” said Sankar J.

“As awareness and popularity of super capacitors increase, its production cost too will be minimised making it an effective and uninterruptible source of energy for all your daily needs,” said Mr. Sankar, an alluring vision for a power-strapped State.

Sangeeth Kurian

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