Researchers have increased battery life by 30 percent

Science is constantly looking for new ways to develop rechargeable batteries that can charge faster, have a longer life and better store energy.

With a new discovery, a research group from Stanford University has taken a huge step in the right direction. in the magazine temper nature They describe how they were able to bring the used portion of the lithium battery back to life, so the battery lasts 30 percent longer.

This could be of great importance to electric vehicle owners, who may encounter problems when batteries eventually lose their ability to store energy.

Batteries form ‘dead’ islands

A rechargeable lithium battery is charged and discharged as lithium ions continuously move from the negative electrode, the anode, to the positive electrode, the cathode.

When the battery is repeatedly charged and discharged, some of the lithium content becomes chemically inactive, resulting in the formation of small islands of dead lithium, which move back and forth without coming into direct contact with the electrodes.

Therefore, substances that store energy usually lose their ability to recharge.

Electricity brings lithium back into the cycle

In the new experiment, US researchers succeeded in supplying electricity to the positive and negative electrodes in a rechargeable battery, to see if it could power inactive lithium.

They compare passive lithium to a kind of mask, which moves between the electrodes by stretching the head and pulling the tail with pulsating motions – without touching the electrodes.

The movement works by dissolving one end of the substance, at the same time as the substance is being added to the other.

By adding more electricity to the inactive lithium, the researchers were able to drive the process, so that the lithium mask could crawl all the way down, connect with the anode and then lock it into the battery life cycle again.

The research group shows that waking up lithium islands can increase battery life by a third, which could have a significant impact on the size and capacity of an electric car battery in the future.