Posted on 07/12/2016 6:07:12 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Well it seems the battery gods have heard our call and bestowed upon us a miracle.
Researchers at the University of California Irvine (UCI) may have discovered a way to drastically increase the life of modern day batteries. And the best part is that they stumbled upon this solution by accident.
To be more specific, the discovery was made by fifth-year PhD student, Mya Le Thai. Mya was working on an electrolyte gel that was to substitute the electrolyte liquid currently found in batteries in an attempt to make it more affordable. But in a coincidental twist of fate (thank you battery gods), her solution also happened to significantly extend the lifespan of a battery.
Up until now, the most promising venture into the evolution of battery technology had come in the form of nanowire filaments, wires comprised of various materials that are thousands of times thinner than a human hair.
For a long time now, scientists have aimed to replace the graphite anode currently used in lithium batteries with these nanowire filaments. These nanowires are considerably more powerful, have the ability to store greater amounts of energy and retain that energy for a much longer time period.
But if nanowires are such a great alternative to lithium batteries, why does the world still predominantly use the latter? Well, the problem with nanowires is that they are extremely fragile and tend to break when repeatedly charged. It’s not hard to see why electronic manufacturers would rather stick with the less resilient yet more reliable lithium batteries.
This is where Mya Le Thai’s magic gel comes in. Typically, a Lithium Ion battery can go through between 5000 and 7000 recharge cycles before it dies and will also gradually lose its energy storage capacity over time. When researchers applied Thai’s plexiglass-like gel to gold nanowires in a manganese dioxiode shell, it increased that number to over 200,000 and the battery didn’t lose any of its power or storage capacity over a period of three months.
This is a colossal difference, which could lead to multiple positive implications in our daily lives. Smartphones, laptops, battery cars, wireless remotes, digital cameras… pretty much anything that isn’t connected to a power socket requires a battery. With this innovation all these items will be powered, and remain powered, for a much, much longer time.
I’m sure my tiny mind is only scratching the surface of this great discovery and the extent of its real-world applications. But I’m pretty sure that over the next few years we will probably realise just how dependent on batteries we are and how significant this discovery actually is.
It will most probably be quite some time before we see this discovery in commercial action, though. For now, all we can do now is wait. Like most scientific discoveries, there is always more testing to be done and lab rats to torment.
“For this research right now the plan is to understand the mechanisms of how this gel electrolyte could prolong the cyclibility so well,” Thai said. “The future bigger plan would be to optimize these gel electrolytes to see if it can improve even more.”
Don’t take too long, Ms. Thai. I’m sure most of us are waiting in intense anticipation.
Those of you who are more scientifically-inclined can read a detailed report of the research titled “100k Cycles and Beyond: Extraordinary Cycle Stability for MnO2 Nanowires Impacted by a Gel Electrolyte”, published in the American Chemical Society’s publication, Energy Letters.
Feature image: Steve Zylius via UCI
Yeah that too, and I heard it really caused that drug companies sales to spring higher.
This could be a big breakthrough for solar power.
It could make it economically viable by providing a cheap and long life means of storing the energy for use when it is dark or there is peak demand.
It is limiting to have a power source that only works well in bright daylight.
If there ever was such a thing...it didn't put out much HP. Like a Honda 50.
Previous article here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3423047/posts
NOT a dupe, just another article from the month of April about the same breakthrough from UC Irvine.
Don’t forget Post It Notes.
You can use then to list the other accidents.
I read it as researchers in WW2 in England noticing that high output high frequency RF from their new cavity magnetron could heat up anything that had water in it... and the fact that rain lowered the effective range of the radar..the water absorbed the energy. This is also what happens when it rains and Direct TV fades out.
Before the cavity magnetron the Brits used the 10 meter HF shortwave band for radar. It was called the Chain Home system and used antennas mounted on towers along the coast. The antennas were simple wide-band antennas still in use today by Ham Radio operators...the Double Bazooka.
Exactly!
Nitro glycerin was discovered to have medicinal uses when workers that happened to suffer from angina at a munitions plant discovered that it would sometime abruptly stop during the work day.
It happened if they touched their tongue with a finger that had nitro residue on it.
Poor hand-washing leads to valuable medical treatment.
It is not a scientific discovery. It is an engineering discovery.
Most advances are engineering discoveries.
Yes, serendipity of a sort. A lot of “cut and try”.
Edison said 99% of invention is perspiration, or something close to that.
Why don’t you put your thoughts down on a “Post It” or bounce it around with Silly Putty.../S
LoL :-)
Exactly.
Going back a little further, Ivory soap’s floatiness was found when a batch operator went to lunch leaving the mixer paddles on, putting too much air in the soap mix. Rather than throw it out, they found the bars of soap would float. Voila!
Lexan. GE. 1953.
The rest is history.
Great! And instead of using sparse reserves of Lithium, we can use... GOLD? Dammit. Oh, well... still really cool.
Don’t forget ductile iron...my favorite miracle breakthrough.
There was no accident; just bad writing and lack of comprehension on the journolist’s part.
and Viagra?
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