New battery electrode could last 40,000 charge cycles

As our smartphones start doing more for us and become more feature packed, the more battery it would drain, but the thing is it does not matter how big a battery you have because the more you charge it, the less effective it becomes, ultimately resulting in a battery that will barely get you through the day.

Now it seems that a team of researchers from Stanford have developed a new battery electrode that they’re claiming will be able to survive 40,000 charge cycles. That’s a hundred times more than your standard lithium-ion battery, which means you should be able to experience phenomenal battery life for a good 10-30 years!

The new battery electrode the researchers have developed is made from copper hexacyanoferrate. Not only does the structure of this material allow charge-carrying ions to move in and out of the electrode easily, but because it is rugged, it degrades a lot slower than your typical li-ion batteries.

Unfortunately it seems that in order to turn this into a commercially viable product, a high voltage cathode would need a very low voltage anode and it appears that the researchers have yet to make that part yet. Without this, a sealed unit cannot be created and thus cannot be made commercially available.

We can’t say that manufacturers of smartphones, laptops, and tablets can’t be too pleased about this. After all there are customers out there who wait until their gadgets are completely dead before buying a new one, and a device whose battery can be charged and recharged for the next decade just doesn’t make for good repeat business. Either way this is definitely a battery to look forward to, so best get cracking fellas!

Tyler Lee
Categories: Concepts
Tags: Battery, lithium ion, research, stanford