The Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent) included the invention made by scientists from the Laboratory of Nuclear Problems JINR Sergey Nikolaevich Dolya and Victor Ivanovich Smirnov “Device for resonance charge of capacitor” in the top-100 inventions of Russia for the second half of 2020 (Russian patent No. 2734903 received in March 2020). JINR has become the winner of such an award as a patent holder for the first time.

According to the scientists, the impetus for this invention was the necessity to increase the intensity of a proton beam when developing a new JINR accelerator for proton therapy. It was necessary to invent a device for “assembling” the whole beam, as far as only a sixth of particles will get into the accelerator. As a result, the device created for charging the capacitor turned out to be applicable in other areas. Scientists managed to reach such a resonance at which the energy of a charged device flows quickly to capacitors. This has broad prospects for creating a new type of chargers.

“We used to spend all night charging for a one-hour drive, and now the situation is reversed: you can drive all day and fully charge an electrocar in an hour,” Sergey Dolya noted in his comment.

Authors of invention V. I. Smirnov and S. N. Dolya

As stated in the description of the invention, it relates to electrical engineering and conversion equipment and can be used to supply pulse loads. The device for resonance charge of capacitors includes power supply, in-series connected to its transistor, inductance, and capacitor. Its peculiarity is that rechargeable inductance and limiting transistor are connected in parallel to the capacitor.

Rospatent specialists noted the economic effect and the readiness of the invention for use: supercapacitors with the use of the new technology are planned to be soon applied as parts of circuits requiring instantaneous maximum power. For example, for car or locomotive starters. Or for equipment requiring an uninterrupted power supply at the same level. For example, in server rooms or big data storages. The economic effect is achieved by using less powerful and more affordable power sources.

This technology allows supercpacitors to instantly produce a voltage several times greater than the power source. Rospatent considers it as one of the technological advantages of the invention. The technical solution provides that the device for resonance charge uses two RLS circuits: one as a part of the other, which are alternately supplied with current. There is an opportunity for increasing the charge using a given current fluctuation, as well as changing the polarity in the charged capacitor.

Rospatent and the Federal Institute of Industrial Property of Rospatent (FIPS) annually select 100 best inventions of the year. Specialists of FIPS industry expert departments identify potential inventions and the Commission for selecting top-100 inventions of Russia, which consists of heads of the departments and is led by the FIPS director, approves the list of the best inventions and recommends it for publication. Moreover, the Commission recommends that patent holders of the best inventions are awarded Rospatent diplomas. Such a diploma is the highest recognition of professionals by the national patent service.