Let’s face it, accidents happen and sometimes, they happen on a frequent basis. We may stub our toe or perhaps we oversleep in the morning but have you ever had an accident and made a scientific breakthrough at the same time?
That is what happened to Mya Le Thai, a doctoral student. She was playing in the university’s lab and came across a structure to create a battery that would be repeatedly charged and can last over 400 years.
Originally, they were experimenting with nano wires to be used as batteries but they learned that the wires would break or crack after too many charging cycles. It was then that Thai did an experiment where she coated a set of golden wires in manganese dioxide and a Plexiglas electrolyte gel.
According to the University chemistry department, she began cycling the gel capacitors and she got the surprise of her life. It’s been going through 10,000 cycles and still continues to keep going. After a few days, it’s been cycling more than 30,000 times and it continued for a month.
Considering the fact that the average laptop battery lasts only up to 500 charging cycles, it’s a major breakthrough. The innovation survived 200,000 charging cycles while at the same time, only losing 5% of its capacity. In other words, it could extend the life of a laptop battery up to 400 years.
The parts of the battery would likely drive up the price so a nickel substitute was suggested for mass production. It still being tested. Imagine how convenient it would be and how much waste would be reduced if these batteries were created!
Via: Elite readers
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