The University of California, Irvine (UCI) has many research groups. One such group, headed up by Mya Le Thai, has recently found a new way to make batteries that will revolutionize the way we store energy. This storage device can be recharged indefinitely, about 400 years by their estimates, without loss of battery life. They call it a nanobattery.
More Information
This battery is made using nanowires. These nanowires are thousands of times smaller than a human hair. In the past these nanowires would become brittle and crack when charged repeatedly. The team at UCI have hopefully solved this problem using a Plexiglas-like gel.
As you can see from this video the gel helps keep the nanowires intact and helps them maintain their shape. This will hopefully lead to these nanobatteries becoming commonplace in the future.
Where Can You Learn More About UCI’s Nanobattery?
You can learn more on their website or on their article about the discovery.
Comments and Opinions
This is an amazing discovery. If this design becomes the standard for batteries we could have batteries that can be recharged essentially indefinitely. Just take in that if this nanobattery can last four hundred years, then you could buy one and give it to your eldest child when they are a kid, and if they do the same, and if this tradition continued, the same battery could be used by 16 generations of your family (assuming that each person gifts the battery when they are around 25). I know that if I could get a nanobattery that I would able to be use for my entire life, I would.
This is a breakthrough in technology. The team at UCI have done something that many others were unable to do and that was create a way for nanowires to hold multiple charges. This accomplishment will lead us into a bright future.
