Whether it is for our smartphones or for our laptops, we just won’t step out of our house without a charger. Reason? It just won’t last for an entire day!
But what if there was a battery that would take the worry lines off our faces and make a battery last 400 times longer than an average battery? Shocked!
Well, in what can be described as a classic case of an accidental invention, researchers from the University of California, Irvine, have developed a battery that would keep working efficiently for over 20,00,000 charge cycles and could potentially replace the commonly used Lithium battery in future.
Before we dig into the details, here’s a short backgrounder on how a battery works.
How does Lithium battery work?
Most batteries used today are powered by Lithium. These batteries are made of three components- an anode (typically graphite), which is the negatively charged electrode that allows electricity to flow into the system, a cathode (typically lithium-cobalt oxide), which is the positively charged electrode that that allows electricity to leave the device, and an electrolyte (typically Lithium salt in an organic solvent), that allows charge aka electricity flow between the two terminals.
When the battery is charging, ions move from cathode to anode via the electrolyte. During discharging, the process is reversed.
How does the super-battery work?
Coming back to our super-battery, the scientists replaced lithium with gold nanowires and liquid with a gel. In addition to that, scientists also quoted the gold nanowires with a layer of manganese oxide. What they found out will blow your minds away!
They discovered that just by using the gel, they could cycle the battery to thousands of times without losing its capacity.
Ordinarily, a battery can last up to 7,000 cycles max, but with the new technique, the system could withstand up to 2,00,000 charge cycles and lose only 5 percent of its total capacity, which by the way is freaking awesome!
Price?
In case you’re wondering about the price, don’t bother.
Gold nano-wires are definitely going to burn a hole in your pockets. But the good news is that the team is already experimenting with nickel to make the battery cheaper. Let’s hope that this super battery finds its way to our pockets soon!
