Batteries

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three scientists for the invention and development of the lithium-ion battery.

NASA’s Christina Koch and Andrew Morgan have successfully completed a seven-hour spacewalk to the outpost’s vital power systems.

Scientists at the University of California (UC) Berkeley have designed an inflight docking system that adds charge to quadcopters while they're in flight.

An innovative new battery design makes use of an element we’re producing too much of in carbon dioxide, and boasts an unprecedented ability to recharge 500 times.

Scientists at Purdue University have come up with a new and improved battery design by first fashioning a key material into a net-like structure called a nanochain.

An innovative new method of drawing direct electrochemical energy from seawater means underwater robots, vehicles and detectors could go deeper and longer into the unknown.

The GoSun Chill is a portable cooler that, instead of needing to be loaded up with ice, draws on a 144-Wh detachable powerbank for refrigeration (or topping up your mobile devices). GoSun also provides a number of solar panel options for completely off-grid cooling capabilities.

Engineers have developed a new type of hybrid cathode for a lithium-sulfur battery that seems to boast better energy density than existing versions of both lithium-ion and lithium-sulfur batteries.

​They've been used as a rubber additive, a carbon-capture medium and a bioplastic ingredient. Now, discarded eggshells may have yet another use. Scientists have determined that they could be utilized in an eco-friendly and inexpensive form of energy storage.

​We've already heard how batteries that are built into the structure of items – such as cars or satellites – could help extend run times without increasing bulk. Now, the flight time of a drone has been almost doubled, thanks to such "structural batteries."

How we store that energy is a constant work in progress, and while scientists are making important but incremental advances with inventive new materials, others are out to entirely reinvent what we think of as a battery. Here are five of the most innovative examples from 2018.

A new study shows how fluoride might be put to work in better batteries. Researchers at Caltech, JPL, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the Honda Research Institute have developed fluoride-based batteries that could potentially last much longer than existing lithium-ion-based devices.