Lithium-ion batteries have allowed us to make some pretty impressive advancements in energy storage.They’re not the most environmentally sustainable option, as they still lose capacity and degrade over time, and there is a slight risk of them exploding, but generally speaking, they’ve been the best option for our needs.
Until now. Maybe.
In a recent article in the journal Matter, a team of scientists at the University of Maryland and University of Houston explained how they created a stable and sustainable alternative using zinc ions derived from, of all things, crab shells.
As The Daily Beast explains:
Zinc-based batteries have yet to be commercialized because of a well-known problem: Zinc ions will crash out of the water-based solution in the battery and form protrusions called dendrites that over time cause the battery to short. Existing solutions to prevent…