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OnlinePoker

(5,702 posts)
Fri Apr 22, 2016, 06:47 PM Apr 2016

Scientists accidentally create batteries that last a lifetime

If it works as well as reported, this needs to be scaled up to industrial production. Just the saving in resources over the long term would be astounding.

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RESEARCHERS AT the University of California at Irvine (UCI) have accidentally - yes, accidentally - discovered a nanowire-based technology that could lead to batteries that can be charged hundreds of thousands of times.

Mya Le Thai, a PhD candidate at the university, explained in a paper published this week that she and her colleagues used nanowires, a material that is several thousand times thinner than a human hair, extremely conductive and has a surface area large enough to support the storage and transfer of electrons.

Nanowires are extremely fragile and don't usually hold up well to repeated discharging and recharging, or cycling. They expand and grow brittle in a typical lithium-ion battery, but Le Thai’s team fixed this by coating a gold nanowire in a manganese dioxide shell and then placing it in a Plexiglas-like gel to improve its reliability. All by accident.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2455715/scientists-accidentally-create-batteries-that-last-a-lifetime

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Scientists accidentally create batteries that last a lifetime (Original Post) OnlinePoker Apr 2016 OP
Hope this plays out Android3.14 Apr 2016 #1
But it'll cost the consumer looking to buy one about $100,000 ... 1StrongBlackMan Apr 2016 #2
Its actually simpler than that airplaneman Apr 2016 #5
I'm not sure how you accidentally coat gold nanowire in manganese dioxide bhikkhu Apr 2016 #3
I haven't read the article, so I'm not exactly sure of their technique Victor_c3 Apr 2016 #4
How stable is this manganese dioxide? truedelphi Apr 2016 #6
Off the top of my head, I don't know Victor_c3 Apr 2016 #9
Thanks Victor_c3. truedelphi Apr 2016 #10
This is the same lab where that peanut butter & chocolate accident happened. nilram Apr 2016 #7
my kind of accident sue4e3 Apr 2016 #14
Happened kind of like this... nilram Apr 2016 #15
Come on now all of my gold nanowires are coated with something. airplaneman Apr 2016 #11
It's the gel that is the 'accident' - they didn't expect it to work that way, anyway muriel_volestrangler Apr 2016 #13
K&R. Yes please! Overseas Apr 2016 #8
The most exciting phrase to hear in science... pokerfan Apr 2016 #12
 

1StrongBlackMan

(31,849 posts)
2. But it'll cost the consumer looking to buy one about $100,000 ...
Fri Apr 22, 2016, 07:29 PM
Apr 2016

I would love a law where any product, service, or resource that is developed into a commercial product, discovered through research paid for by government or in government facilities, should be released to the public for the cost of the materials.

airplaneman

(1,236 posts)
5. Its actually simpler than that
Fri Apr 22, 2016, 08:57 PM
Apr 2016

Require any product, research, or pharmaceutical drug developed with government (aka tax payer money) must remain public domain the rights of which cannot be purchased for private profit. I am sure that many a small business would compete to keep the price reasonable on any good product.
-Airplane

bhikkhu

(10,708 posts)
3. I'm not sure how you accidentally coat gold nanowire in manganese dioxide
Fri Apr 22, 2016, 08:39 PM
Apr 2016

most of my accidents involve stubbed toes and papercuts and so forth...but good for them. I've read a great deal about amazing new battery developments over the years, I hope this one pans out and is marketable. After so long, we're still all driving cars with lead-acid batteries not much different from 100 years ago.

Victor_c3

(3,557 posts)
4. I haven't read the article, so I'm not exactly sure of their technique
Fri Apr 22, 2016, 08:51 PM
Apr 2016

But when I was in college in 2002 working on my chem degree I worked on a project where we were growing single molecule thick layers of various compounds on gold substrates. It was as easy as popping some gold in a beaker with a solution of what you were trying to coat the gold with, waiting a little bit, then pulling it out. You could alternate different layers and make a wafer with little effort.

truedelphi

(32,324 posts)
6. How stable is this manganese dioxide?
Fri Apr 22, 2016, 09:19 PM
Apr 2016

I understand that manganese itself presents problems for us human beings if absorbed through skin or in water or food.

One of the world's most super duper murder capital's is a town in Australia that is in the boondocks but located right across the highway from a major manganese production facility.

Victor_c3

(3,557 posts)
9. Off the top of my head, I don't know
Fri Apr 22, 2016, 09:47 PM
Apr 2016

but you have to realize that it is bonded to oxygen which will change it's reactivity and characteristics altogether. Chlorine gas by itself is deadly but when you mix it with a little sodium you get table salt.

I just looked up manganese dioxide and apparently humans and our ancestors have been using it as a pigment to paint our skin for hundreds of thousands of years. I don't believe it would be harmful to us at all. However I guess someone thought the same thing about putting lead in paint and we saw how that turned out...

I'm not a big fan of murder either

truedelphi

(32,324 posts)
10. Thanks Victor_c3.
Fri Apr 22, 2016, 10:08 PM
Apr 2016

Murder is usually not one of my favorite things either. (Although I love a good murder mystery.)

nilram

(2,879 posts)
7. This is the same lab where that peanut butter & chocolate accident happened.
Fri Apr 22, 2016, 09:22 PM
Apr 2016

Accident-prone, but it's very profitable for them.

airplaneman

(1,236 posts)
11. Come on now all of my gold nanowires are coated with something.
Sat Apr 23, 2016, 12:14 AM
Apr 2016

You cant have un-coated gold nanowires laying around you know.
-Airplane

muriel_volestrangler

(101,146 posts)
13. It's the gel that is the 'accident' - they didn't expect it to work that way, anyway
Sat Apr 23, 2016, 06:36 AM
Apr 2016
"Mya was playing around, and she coated this whole thing with a very thin gel layer and started to cycle it," said Penner, chair of UCI's chemistry department. "She discovered that just by using this gel, she could cycle it hundreds of thousands of times without losing any capacity."

"That was crazy," he added, "because these things typically die in dramatic fashion after 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cycles at most."

The researchers think the goo plasticizes the metal oxide in the battery and gives it flexibility, preventing cracking.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-04-chemists-battery-technology-off-the-charts-capacity.html#jCp
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