Video Shows Why Recharging Kills Batteries 111
sciencehabit writes with this except from Science: "You may not give a lot of thought to what happens inside the battery of your laptop or cell phone, but to judge from this video, it's not a dull place. The battery in question is a miniature rechargeable lithium-ion device, and the clip shows what happens when it is charged. As lithium ions flow from the positively charged cathode into the 200-nanometre diameter wires of tin oxide that make up the negatively charged anode, the nanowires writhe and bulge, causing them to expand up to 2.5 fold. The wires also change structure from a neatly ordered crystal to a disordered glassy material. These distortions may explain why such batteries ultimately wear down. Knowing more about the process may help researchers develop longer lasting, and perhaps much smaller, batteries in the future."
Re:Can't wait for the same on supercaps (Score:3, Insightful)
Wouldn't it be just the same system we use now, except backed by electrons (instead of fiat, or metals)?
I can't see our physical money tokens being replaced by batteries - not unless either the storage density goes up a few orders of magnitude or power prices do, and that's not counting the price of the battery itself. Power is about 10 cents per kilowatt hour. My laptop battery is, what, 60 watt hours? Even if it was 600 watt hours in the same volume and weight, that's worth less than ten cents.
Re:You got all that from THAT video? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's an engineering trade-off (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want a small light battery that stores a large amount of energy, something has to give.
Why?
Re:Can't wait for the same on supercaps (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? Because it can't be created or destroyed?
You fail to see the difference between energy and useful energy. The supply of the latter certainly went up when the water wheel & steam engine were invented. If your currency was backed by energy it would crash just like one backed by gold would if you suddenly stole tons of it from a South American kingdom that you'd just conquered.