Supercharging the Future: New Battery Has Five Times the Capacity of Lithium-Ion Batteries

When it comes to batteries, everyone is always looking for the next breakthrough in durability and sustainability. Researchers are always working on batteries that can charge more and last longer. Now a team at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, may have come up with a battery that can do just that, according to New Scientist.

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Five days of charge

The battery is so impressive that a smartphone version of it would keep your phone running for five whole days. But why is this particular battery so special, you may ask? It is a lithium-sulphur battery. If it sounds familiar, it's because many people have been trying to get lithium-sulphur batteries right due to their great potential.

Unfortunately, "the capacity of the sulphur electrode is so large that it breaks apart over cycles of charging and discharging, and the energy advantage rapidly disappears," explained to New Scientist Mahdokht Shaibani, a researcher in this new team.

To deal with this issue, the researchers tried an innovative approach and created a battery where the sulphur particles have more space to expand and contract. The conventional approach to lithium-sulphur batteries is to have elements added that bind the particles inside to avoid the battery breaking as it expands.

More space

Shaibani and her team took a new approach and used a smaller amount of polymer binding material in their electrode and instead created more space between the sulphur particles. Professor Mainak Majumder, another researcher on the team, said in a statement that their innovation could transform the way phones, cars, computers, and solar grids are manufactured in the future.

"Successful fabrication and implementation of Li-S batteries in cars and grids will capture a more significant part of the estimated $213 billion value chain of Australian lithium, and will revolutionize the Australian vehicle market and provide all Australians with a cleaner and more reliable energy market," he said.

And we believe we speak for everyone when we say that we can't wait for this battery to become a regular thing.