If you were to ask someone whether he or she could create a battery out of wood a few decades back, chances are you would be on the receiving end of an incredulous look, as though you were a mad alchemist from the Dark Ages who is trying to create gold from normal metal. Fast forward to the 21st century, and we have word that scientists have discovered a method to create a ‘green’ battery using wood. This battery is said to be relatively long lasting as well, as they charged and discharged the sodium-ion battery hundreds of times, and it still remained intact after that.
The brains from the University of Maryland have come up with this particular “green” battery that relies on a sliver of wood that is covered with tin. Sodium will replace lithium, where the latter is one core “ingredient” that can be found in many rechargeable batteries. The thing about sodium is this, it does not keep energy as efficiently, but rather, this ‘green’ battery is capable of storing massive amounts of energy at any one time, similar to how solar energy works at a power plant. Wood fibers were used since they are flexible enough to enable the sodium-ion battery to last for over 400 charging cycles, clearly making this as one of the longest lasting nanobatteries to date. As to how this will change the way batteries are developed in the future, it remains to be seen, but exciting times are definitely ahead of us.