We all rely on rechargeable batteries when it comes to keeping our favorite electronic devices such as smartphones and tablets up and running. But they’re not brilliant, and after a few thousand charges they become less able to hold the charge. Currently, the majority of these batteries are made from lithium as in the past that proved to be the best material for the job. However, recent discoveries have made scientists think about this in a different light.
Researchers at UC Irvine have created a battery using gold nanowires to store electricity rather than lithium. After rigorous testing, it was found that these new style batteries were much better than lithium at holding a charge. The discovery came about as a bit of an accident while they were trying to create a solid-state battery using electrolyte gel. Reginald Penner is the lead author of the paper, and he said, “We started to cycle the devices, and then realized that they weren’t going to die. We don’t understand the mechanism of that yet.”
Nanowires that were used without the electrolyte gel, left, corroded after 4,000 cycles. The wires in the gel, right, show little corrosion after 100,000 cycles.
Unlike most other types of batteries, the Irvine battery uses a gold nanowire that’s covered first in manganese oxide then coated in electrolyte gel to prevent corrosion. The bigger the surface area of the wire, the more charge it can hold. Penner said, “[The gel] does more than just keep the wire together. It seems to make the metal oxide softer and more fracture-resistant. It increases the fracture toughness of this metal oxide that is doing the charge storage.”
Although the initial tests suggest these batteries can last 400 times longer than traditional batteries, this wasn’t achieved using a true battery and may be some time before this type of technology becomes readily available to the public because they’re still very expensive to manufacture. But, one day we may see these batteries in our electronics, and maybe we’ll have batteries that last as long as the product. Who knows?
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