Double the battery life of your phone with just one piece of glass

When it comes to keeping smartphones and laptops running longer, the batteries inside these devices are fighting a losing battle. Battery technology has not made any breakthroughs in years. Now, researchers from ETH Zurich have discovered a new glass material that uses a composite material of vanadate and borate. The glass can be used as an electrode material for lithium-ion batteries, almost doubling the battery life of devices.

The team of researchers from ETH Zurich, led by scientists Semih Afyon and Reinhard Nesper, has been working for several years on making this glass, a material that could have a big impact in devices both large and small.

A variety of challenges must be overcome to find materials that can efficiently store battery capacity and withstand frequent recharging times while remaining stable enough to be used in modern electronics.

Chief among these challenges is how to harness the potential of vanadium-based compounds, which can carry more charge than materials currently used in cathodes, but become unstable after a few charge/discharge cycles due to the peculiarities of the material's crystalline structure. To overcome this, the researchers mixed vanadium pentoxide powder with a borate compound to create a vanadate-borate composite glass that has a high capacity and a stable structure that is simple and inexpensive to manufacture.

Dr. Afyon said the motivation behind the research was that "what we need are new chemistries and new compounds to get safe, better and longer-lasting batteries." He added that the vanadate and borate composite glass his team developed could extend the battery life of smartphones by 1.5 to 2 times, and also extend the driving range of electric vehicles by 1.5 times.

This isn't just a gadget in the quest for better batteries, it's vital to the future sustainability of our planet as the number of electric cars, boats and bicycles continues to grow. What's more, wind and solar farms will also need to be able to store the electricity they generate efficiently, so vanadate and borate composite glasses could potentially be used for that, too.

The team has published their work in Scientific Reports and has applied for patents to continue their research. It may take 10 or 20 years before the team's research results actually appear in consumer devices.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.