This Student Accidentally Created A Battery That Could Last 400 Years

Aug 15, 2018 by apost team

It seems like just about everything we use has a battery that needs to be charged, especially smartphones and laptops. However, the life of these devices is dependent on the batteries and hooking them up to the charger doesn't always work. Thanks to a student at The University of California, Irvine, there might be a breakthrough that changes how we look at batteries forever.

While batteries are undoubtedly useful, there are drawbacks. One of the biggest is renewability. Batteries can be recycled, but too many households just toss them with the trash. As a result, they sit in landfills and their chemicals are released, posing a threat to the water and ground.

apost.com

Batteries operate based on cycles, a period of time that runs from them being empty to being full. There is a limited number of cycles available for a battery and once it's reached its allotment, the device might be done for.

How this happened is a bit of serendipity. Mya Lee Thai, a doctoral student at UC Irvine, was conducting research with nanowires. Due to their delicate design, these wires weren't able to hold up for multiple cycles. At least they didn't seem they would be.

Thai saw how the nanowires were easily broken, but she still saw fit to continue trying. After dipping nanowires in manganese dioxide and an electrolyte gel, she saw a profound difference in how long the battery was able to last. After 30,000 cycles, the battery was showing no sign of slowing down. Considering that similar batteries rarely see more than 500 cycles, this is a tremendous breakthrough.

An impressive battery lifespan isn't just a compelling novelty, it could also have positive impacts on our future. With batteries lasting long, there will be much less of a need to throw them out. We can make our environment much more sustainable this way.

Happy accidents like this are what makes science such an exciting field. If you have any thoughts on Thai's discovery, please leave your thoughts with us. We invite you to show this to any friends who are wowed by scientific breakthroughs.