PhD student Mya Le Thai and her team were looking at how to design better nanowires for use in normal rechargeable batteries when they unintentionally invented a battery that can last for 400 years.
They made the discovery while researching the properties of nanowires made of gold and embedded in a special electrolyte gel. During their tests, the battery survived 200.000 charge cycles in three months without any loss of performance.That could power a normal smartphone or laptop for 400 years.
Nanowire is thousands of times thinner than a human hair; the increased surface area of the microscopic wire allows greater storage and transferring capacity for electrons. Researchers have been trying to use the material for a long time.
By coating the gold nanowire in a type of electrolyte gel, Thai was able to create a circuit that withstood an unprecedented 200,000 charge cycles in the span of three months of testing, during which time there was no loss in performance, nor were any nanowires fractured by repeated use.
