Electric cars will be able to be charged in just 15 minutes thanks to a new rapidly charging battery that’s been invented by researchers in Singapore.

They have created a battery which can be recharged up to 70% in just two minutes – and with further work will be able to be used in electric vehicles.

The small, circular battery can also last for up to 20 years, the scientists at Nanyang Technological University said. It will be able to last for more than 10,000 charging cycles, much more than the batteries of today.

They believe it will hold huge potential for electric cars as it will allow them to be recharged quickly so that users can get back on the road.

It may also mean that we are able to keep give our phones and other devices a much-needed boost within minutes of them dropping into the red.

The researches replaced traditional graphite that has been used in batteries with a new gel material that is made from

titanium dioxide – found in soil.

They then turned the titanium dioxide into nanotubes that are thinner than a human hair.

They will now be attempting to build a large-scale prototype of the battery, which could be developed to be used in electric vehicles.

Chen Xiaodong, who developed the new batteries, said: “With our nanotechnology, electric cars would be able to increase their range dramatically with just five minutes of charging, which is on par with the time needed to pump petrol for current cars.”

“Equally important, we can now drastically cut down the waste generated by disposed batteries, since our batteries last ten times longer than the current generation of lithium-ion batteries.”

The tech is the latest ‘breakthrough’ in the world of ever-faster charging batteries.

Earlier this year a battery that can charge in just 30 seconds was shown off by Israeli start-up StoreDot.

They demonstrated a Samsung S4 phone being charged from being flat to full power in just 26 seconds, although this was much bigger than the battery of the Nanyang Technological University.

But the researchers told the BBC that they believe they would be able to scale it down to fit inside a mobile phone within one year, and then produce it at a commercially viable level by 2017.

Image one courtesy of Nanyan Technological University