University of California at Irvine (UCI) researchers have accidentally discovered a technology to create batteries that can last pretty much forever. In a recently published paper, Mya Le Thai, a PhD candidate at the university, explained how her team used nanowires (several thousand times thinner than a human hair), which is extremely conductive, with a surface area that supports storage and transfer of electrons.
But nanowires are fragile and grow brittle in a typical lithium-ion battery - until her team coated a gold nanowire in a manganese dioxide shell. This was further encased in a Plexiglas-like gel.
They tested this new battery over 200,000 times for 3 months, without any loss of capacity or power.
This can mean batteries that could last forever, used in appliances, cars and planes.
But nanowires are fragile and grow brittle in a typical lithium-ion battery - until her team coated a gold nanowire in a manganese dioxide shell. This was further encased in a Plexiglas-like gel.
Reginald Penner, chairman of UCI's chemistry department, said: "Mya was playing around and she coated this whole thing with a very thin gel layer and started to cycle it."
"She discovered that just by using this gel she could cycle it hundreds of thousands of times without losing any capacity. That was crazy, because these things typically die in dramatic fashion after 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cycles at most."
They tested this new battery over 200,000 times for 3 months, without any loss of capacity or power.
"The coated electrode holds its shape much better, making it a more reliable option,"
"This research proves that a nanowire-based battery electrode can have a long lifetime and that we can make these kinds of batteries a reality."
This can mean batteries that could last forever, used in appliances, cars and planes.
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