Right now the limitations placed on some of our electronic gadgets like phones, tablets, and smartwatches would be its battery life. Sure, over the years we’ve seen battery capacity increased, and there have also been new ways of charging batteries faster, but for the most part they still take a while to charge and aren’t exactly environmentally friendly.
However it seems that over in Australia, research Han Lin from Swinburne University has managed to create a new flexible battery that can apparently not only charge in seconds, but can be discharged millions of times which means that it could technically last forever, and the best part is that it uses carbon instead of lithium, making it better for the environment.
How he achieved this was by introducing the use of graphene. The large surface area of the material and its honeycomb-like structure makes it perfect for storing energy. Also by using a 3D printer, Han was able to reproduce graphene at a lower cost compared to previous production methods.
The end result is a battery that not only lasts longer, that can charge faster, but is also flexible meaning that its potential can be applied to all sorts of things, like clothing, fabric, a watch strap, and so on.
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