New technology for long lasting batteries

Long lasting batteries had always been a necessity in the past few years and it seems that a team of researchers at the University of California, Irvine, recently have invented just that using a nanowire-based battery material. They claim that this battery can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times without ever corroding.

However these batteries are not seeing the store shelves soon and will will probably have to wait a bit longer for that. The research was actually intended to test nanowires it was not aimed at creating a practical battery said the co author of the research, Dr.Reginald Penner.

With this exciting technology coming in this could edge us closer to possibly developing longer lasting commercial batteries for computers, smartphones, cars and spacecraft in the late future.

In a speech about the research the co author of the research, Dr. Penner said that scientists were interested in nanowires because they allow high power to be obtained, without reducing the total amount of energy that is stored, but the sad part is that nanowires are fragile.

He also added that their research was important as it demonstrates that a very simple modification to a battery or capacitor may allow nanowire electrode materials to last a lot longer, up to 40 times longer and that any corrosion or dissolution of the nanowire material leads very quickly to breakage of the nanowire, and a loss of its capacity which is bad.

The researchers finally concluded that the gel may plasticize the metal oxide in the battery and give it added flexibility, while also preventing any cracking allowing it to last longer than expected.

So far the batteries that have been engineered are capable to withstand only a certain number of cycles. It is to be noted that in previous studies by other scientists they have yielded nanowires that could only achieve 7,000 cycles as reported by the Discovery news.