A Battery Made From Junkyard Metal

Researchers have developed a new high-performance, grid-scale battery made from metal scrap and common household chemicals. The battery, which is the size of a pill bottle, can withstand the equivalent of 13 years of daily charging and discharging while retaining 90% of its capacity. Researcher said that the battery was powerful and easy to build. Researchers were inspired from an ancient technology called the Baghdad Battery, which dates to the first century BC. It consisted of a terracotta pot, a copper sheet and an iron rod along with some trace chemicals that could have been an electrolyte. The team soaked metal in a jar with a solution of water and salt. They then applied a voltage to induce a process called anodisation, which restructures the nanoscopic composition of a metal. That exposes the metal’s interior surface and makes it more receptive to storing and releasing energy. Researchers placed a barrier between the two pieces of metal and submerged it in an electrolyte solution made from water and potassium hydroxide. When connected by wires to a device that generated a current, their contraption worked like a car battery.