University of California-Irvine researchers have invented a unique kind of battery material that they contend can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times.
The development—news of which was published today in the American Chemical Society’s Energy Letters—could lead to batteries with much longer lifespans for computers, smartphones, appliances, cars and spacecraft.
The technology is known as nanowire, and scientists have been trying to use it in batteries for a long time. Nanowires are thousands of times thinner than a human hair and are highly conductive—but also extremely fragile, so they haven’t held up well to repeated recharging.
UCI researchers claim to have solved the challenge by coating the nanowire in a protective shell and encasing the assembly. Those step make the wire reliable and resistant to failure, according to researchers.
The study was conducted in coordination with the Nanostructures for Electrical Energy Storage Energy Frontier Research Center at the University of Maryland, with funding from the Basic Energy Sciences division of the U.S. Department of Energy.
