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Researchers Accidentally Make Batteries That Could Last A Lifetime (computerworld.com)
Reader Socguy writes: A typical Lithium-ion battery breaks down badly between 5000-7000 cycles. Researchers at the University of California may have discovered a simple way to build a Lithium battery that can withstand 100,000+ cycles. This was a serendipitous discovery as the researcher was playing around with the battery and coated it in a thin gel layer. The researchers believe the gel plasticizes the metal oxide in the battery and gives it flexibility, preventing cracking.Dave Gershgorn, reporting for Popular Science: Instead of lithium, researchers at UC Irvine have used gold nanowires to store electricity, and have found that their system is able to far outlast traditional lithium battery construction. The Irvine team's system cycled through 200,000 recharges without significant corrosion or decline. However, they don't exactly know why. "We started to cycle the devices, and then realized that they weren't going to die," said Reginald Penner, a lead author of the paper. "We don't understand the mechanism of that yet." The Irvine battery technology uses a gold nanowire, no thicker than a bacterium, coated in manganese oxide and then protected by a layer of electrolyte gel. The gel interacts with the metal oxide coating to prevent corrosion. The longer the wire, the more surface area, and the more charge it can hold. Other researchers have been experimenting with nanowires for years, but the introduction of the protective gel separates UC Irvine's work from other research.Also from the report, "Penner suggests that a more common metal, like nickel, could replace the gold if the technology catches on."
An understandable reaction, but it's not likely things will work out that way. Makers of current battery types will have to shift quickly; but just think of all the devices that use batteries, and that can now be made so very much better!
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
you should invent your own slightly different version and give it away for free
I believe the relevant quote is "...chance favors the prepared mind..." Louis Pasteur
nothing to see here - move along
No, you can't get those 10 minutes back and you will spend even more time trying to sort this all out.
One minute summary:
It appears that they improved the wires that collect the electrons. (They tested this in a capacitor, not a battery)
The breakthrough is that they were able to use nanowires which have a large surface area (more efficient) but are normally very fragile. They coated them with "gel" which kept them from breaking.
This should lead to better batteries.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
In case people don't spot the sarcasm, decades ago researchers discovered out how to make cheap lightbulbs that last forever, but makers collectively realized that it would kill their business and decided not to make them.
Gold doesn't corrode, and it conducts well. Thus making it really good, and can last for a long time.
Copper will corrode, so after a few years of usage it could reduce in quality.
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"Gold nanowires"? They are saying they coat them so they don't corrode but isn't one of the main properties for which gold is valued the fact that it is highly non-reactive and doesn't typically corrode? Plus I've never heard of wires being used as an energy storage medium, nano or otherwise. I'm certainly no expert in chemistry but Popular Science isn't usually where I go to for reliable information about the latest in battery research. If this were real I'd expect to see the research come from some sort of peer reviewed source.
Everybody knows how to make bulbs that are cheap and last forever. What's hard is making them so that they are simultaneously bright and energy-efficient and still last forever. If you make them brighter by making the filament thinner so that they burn hotter, it makes them more fragile. If you make them brighter by adding more filaments in parallel, they use more power. Bright, energy-efficient, robust—choose (at most) two.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It's a wire in a gel as an electrode. That is a pretty significant advancement. Lithium electrodes tend to degrade because they fracture apart as they charge and discharge (the effect looks like they form hairs over time) - stopping that process means infinite charge cycles (assuming the electrolyte doesn't break down, but that has been solved for some time.)
Greedy bastards will patent it and demand huge fees to license the technology ... Greedy fuckers will make sure this never makes its way into anything I own.
Wrong and Wrong.
As these researchers are part of the University of California system (UC), UC owns the patent. UC's policy for licensing considers the nature of the company seeking the license. Some preference is given to smaller local companies over large multinationals for instance. Also UC retains ownership, they only license. So there is no burying the technology problem.
The lightbulbs cartel has nothing to do with patents, and everything to do with economies of scale and businesses colluding.
Nope. There wasn't some big move to use data over analog networks in 1999, if ever. Indeed, in the very late nineties and early 21st Century the digital standards started to take over in the US making analog devices obsolete and making data services widely available. Companies making beepers moved over to other markets because beepers, in a world of SMS messaging, were obsolete. They never, to my knowledge, started making mobile modems.
In Europe, where GSM had been standard for a while, most mobile manufacturers were making phones that supported data and messaging since about 1995. Again, beepers became pretty much non-existent at that time.
Keurig is hardly sitting on the technology. In addition to building K-Cup coffee machines themselves they've been aggressively licensing the technology too.
Possible, I don't know enough about 3D printing.
Any evidence that they sat on this? Kodak was an early pioneer of digital photography, producing some of the first mass market digital cameras - starting in the mid-1990s which was about the time digital photography could become mass market (eg true-color computer monitors and hard drives had finally become de-facto standards on most personal computers.) Their problem with the technology wasn't that they didn't adopt it or tried to suppress it, it was that they couldn't adapt to it - that is, Kodak couldn't find a business model for digital photography while their chemical business declined to (near) irrelevency..
Absolutely nothing to do with patents. Also the rules requiring AT&T open up their networks to third party devices came in the 1960s, not 1980s. Most people still rented the phones because of ease (and the fact the phones were built like tanks), not because of "patents".
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.