DON’T RECHARGE YOUR CELL PHONE IF ENERGY LEVEL DOES NOT GO BELOW 20 PER CENT: RESEARCHER
Never recharge your cell phone if the energy level has not gone below 20 per cent, an eminent researcher advised on Wednesday.
People have the tendency to put their phone on the recharge mode even when the energy level is 60 or 70 per cent which actually harmed the device and reduced its life, Prof. Siddhartha Das, Professor of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, said.
“The battery’s lifetime decreases if you recharge it every now and then without checking whether it has come down 20 per cent,” Prof. Das said while delivering the keynote speech at the inauguration of the National Conference on ‘Trends in Minerals and Materials Technology’ held at the SOA Deemed to be University here.
The Battery Management Software (BMS) controlled charging of the cell phone battery and it was not advisable to speak on the phone when it was being recharged, he said adding few accidents had been reported about the phone exploding.
“But such mishaps have been very few while incidents of lightning strikes have been more frequent in comparison,” he said.
Prof. Amit Banerjee, Vice-Chancellor of SOA, presided over the program which was also addressed by Prof. Damodar Acharya, eminent academician and Chairman of the SOA Advisory Board and Prof. Pradipta Kumar Nanda, SOA’s Dean (Research and Development). The conference, organised by the Biofuels and Bioprocessing Research Centre (BBRC), one of the 13 research centres being run by the SOA Deemed to be University, was attended by research scholars, scientists, industrialists and academicians.
Prof. Acharya said 20 different rare minerals were used in mobile phones the availability of which was extremely limited. For example, the cell phones used Lithium Ion battery but Lithium was in short supply while the consumption was very high.
Even the power back-up system used widely at present to recharge mobile phones was a ‘dangerous’ device and the European Union was thinking of banning its use, he said.
Prof. Das said the search was on for non-energy minerals to replace the energy minerals and work was on to develop Metal Air battery, Redox Flow battery and Lithium Sulphur battery.
In India, he said, non-renewable energy sources contributed to only 16 per cent of total energy generation compared to 92 per cent in Norway.
Prof. Banerjee stressed on judicious exploration and use of natural resources as the process to harness such minerals was often considered hazardous. He said block chain technology could bring in a paradigm shift in the way the mining sector functioned and the results could be optimized.
Prof. Lala Behari Sukla, Director of BBRC and Convenor of the conference, said large investments would be required alongside latest technologies in the field of prospecting and mining. The need was to promote state-of-the-art exploration techniques, scientific mining and optimal use of minerals through ore dressing and beneficiation technologies, he said.
Dr. Debabrata Pradhan, Organising Secretary of the conference and Dr. Niharbala Devi, Co-convenor, also spoke.