Aluminum is environment friendly at storing and releasing power however tough to make use of due to advanced chemistry.
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Scientists in Bengaluru have created a breakthrough battery that’s versatile sufficient to fold like paper and protected to the touch, providing a promising various to lithium-ion batteries utilized in telephones, laptops, electrical autos, and wearables.
Lithium-ion cells can overheat and even explode. The new design, developed on the Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS) with the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE), IISc, replaces lithium with aluminum — one in all Earth’s most ample, eco-pleasant metals — mixed with a water-primarily based electrolyte. This makes the battery safer, cheaper, and extra sustainable.
Aluminum is environment friendly at storing and releasing power however tough to make use of due to advanced chemistry. The crew overcame this by engineering supplies on the microscopic scale. They constructed a cathode of copper hexacyanoferrate pre-stuffed with aluminum ions and paired it with a molybdenum trioxide anode. The result’s a battery that maintains 96.8 per cent of its capability after 150 cost–discharge cycles and bends or folds with out dropping energy.
To reveal, researchers powered an LCD show whereas folding the battery in half. Such flexibility might allow roll-up devices and clothes-built-in wearables, whereas its security profile fits electrical autos and different excessive-demand makes use of.
Advanced electron-microscopy and spectroscopic exams confirmed the battery’s sturdiness and excessive efficiency. By utilizing ample aluminum and a water-primarily based system, the innovation helps world sustainability targets and positions India on the forefront of multivalent-ion battery analysis. With additional refinement, this subsequent-era power-storage know-how might quickly discover its approach into on a regular basis gadgets and safer, greener transportation.
Published on September 22, 2025