A Researcher Has Unintentionally Created A Battery That Has The Potential To Last A Lifetime

Poor battery life is the most common criticism about smartphones and computers. Tethering ourselves down to power up our gadgets becomes increasingly inconvenient in a wireless culture. While experts are investigating wireless charging, we would have less to worry about if batteries were better.

A new technology now claims to do precisely that. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have developed a nanowire-based battery that can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times, marking a huge step toward a battery that does not need to be replaced.

Nanowires have various advantageous properties for electric storage and transmission. They are highly conductive and thousands of times thinner than a human hair, allowing for a vast surface area for electron transport. Unfortunately, nanowires are often quite fragile and do not fare well when repeatedly charged and discharged.

The researchers covered gold nanowires in manganese dioxide and cocooned them in a Plexiglas-like gel, according to their findings published in the American Chemical Society’s Energy Letters. This combination preserves all of the nanowires’ characteristics and makes them fracture resistant.

Mya Le Thai, the study’s lead author, charged and discharged the battery 200,000 times without breaking the nanowires or losing capacity.

In a statement, senior author Reginald Penner, chief of UCI’s chemical department, stated, “Mya was messing about, and she coated this whole thing with a very thin gel coating and started cycling it.” “She discovered that she could cycle it hundreds of thousands of times without losing any capability just by applying this gel.”

“That was insane,” he continued, “since these things usually die in dramatic way after 5,000, 6,000, or 7,000 cycles at most.”

The combination of the PMMA (plexiglass-like) gel electrolyte and the magnesium oxide, according to the researchers, offers the nanowires flexibility and structure, avoiding cracking and so extending their operational life.

Thai explained, “The coated electrode keeps its shape significantly better, making it a more trustworthy option.” “This research demonstrates that a nanowire-based battery electrode can have a long lifetime and that these types of batteries are feasible.”