University Accidentally Invents a Battery that Lasts Forever


Christmas gifts that come with batteries that last a few centuries could be just around the corner after researchers at the University of California at Irvine accidentally stumbled upon a nanobattery “with 94–96% average Coulombic efficiency.”

This find certainly will change the way life is energized when all is said and done and this nanobattery is ready for commercial use. The idea of having one’s laptop battery last for 400 years is remarkable.

The advance happened when UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai “was playing around” in the lab and coated a set of gold nanowires in manganese dioxide, then applied a “Plexiglas-like” electrolyte gel. Under normal circumstances, nanowires – highly conductive but thousands of times thinner than a human hair – are useless after no more than 8,000 charge cycles because their fragility causes them to crack during charge and discharge loads. At the end of three months, however, the researchers found the nanowires in Thai’s gel-coated battery still intact. They suspect that the gel “plasticizes the metal oxide in the battery,” imbuing the nanowires with flexibility, which equals longevity. Thai said, “The coated electrode holds its shape much better.” The school published its findings in the American Chemical Society journal Energy Letters.

Move over Energizer Bunny, there’s a new nano in town.

Source: The Drive



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