The smart mobile device market is full of products with many different brands, each promising the next best thing. While each brand has its positives and negatives, one thing we can all agree on is the need for new technology that can deliver longer battery life; because devices always seem to run out when you need it most. One company looking to make this problem a thing of the past is ZAF Energy Systems with its next-generation rechargeable metal-air battery.

The company's bidirectional air electrode enables the next generation of metal-air batteriesto double cell phone battery life and lower the cost by more than one third. This innovation has led the company to be issued US patent number 8728671 for the technology.

The ZAF solution is able to enhance the electrochemical activity of the material with a high-surface area using its propriety catalysts. The air electrode provides a high inherent conductivity that lowers the need for conductive additives, which increases the weight and reduces the efficiency in traditional batteries.

According to the company, the batteries use sustainable non-strategic materials, are recyclable, operate at extreme temperatures and can be configured to the vast majority of existing form factors. The air electrode offers strength, flexibility, and high conductivity and it can be produced with different thicknesses. It can be designed for a variety of applications because the batteries can be thin. This includes wearable devices, long-range electric vehicles, consumer electronics, backup power and more.

Whether it is for computers, communication devices, consumer electronics or vehicles,there is a growing need for efficient battery power. The recent announcement of Elon Musk and his $5 billion gigabit factory to produce lithium ion batteries is a great example.

If Musk has his way he is going to build a factory that will produce enough lithium ion batteries to outfits 500,000 electric cars by 2020. According to the company, the battery cell output of the factory would be 35 GW hours per year and the battery pack output would be 50 gigawatt hours per year.

To put the gigabit factory in perspective, in 2012 battery factories around the world produced almost 27 GW hours of advanced batteries of which more than 90 percent were lithium-ion. Of that total, 23 GW hours were used for consumer electronics such as cell phones, laptops and tablets.