Lithium-ion batteries generally degrade fastest when held at a high state of charge, which means keeping your iPhone or your Mac's battery at 100 percent accelerates the chemical wear that permanently reduces its actual capacity over time.
Tritium is a hydrogen isotope with a half-life of 12.3 years. As it decays, beta particles strike a phosphor coating and produce light. The process requires no electricity, no chemical reaction, and no external energy. It simply happens, continuously, for decades.
Together, we developed a high-voltage battery system that unlocks the full potential of the new cylindrical cells in record time, delivering significant improvements in energy, range, and charging performance.
Never place batteries of any type in your curbside recycling bin. Batteries can damage recycling equipment and, if lithium batteries are mixed in, cause fires. Always use designated battery collection programs.
The team, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beijing Institute of Technology, recently published their findings in Nature Communications. According to their research, the process not only avoids conventional leaching chemicals and extreme heat to extract lithium from old batteries, but it also uses carbon dioxide in what the authors call a sequestration step, and turns other battery transition metals into new catalysts - with CO₂-rich water doing most of the chemical work.
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are found in many devices we use every day, like smartphones, laptops, tablets, wireless earbuds, power tools, e-bikes, and electric vehicles. By 2023, there were more than 40 million electric vehicles on the road worldwide, and billions of portable electronics used Li-ion cells. These batteries are valuable for recycling, but they can be dangerous if not disposed of correctly.
EDC used to mean something very specific. Ask any survival enthusiast and they'll tell you it stands for EveryDay Carry, the essential tools you keep on hand at all times. A Swiss Army knife. A multi-tool. A compact flashlight. Things built for the unpredictable, the inconvenient, and the emergency. The whole point was physical survival, and the design language to match: rugged, matte, built to last.
The first sites are expected to open later this Summer, and will be built at select locations along I-5 and I-10, major routes for commercial vehicles and significant logistics companies. The chargers will be available in California, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas. Each station will have between four and eight chargers, delivering up to 1.2 megawatts of power at each stall.
For the most part, rechargeable battery-powered devices are incredibly well-behaved. It's a good thing, really, because most of us are happy to go to sleep with a charging smartphone not far from our head each night, and cram ourselves onto an aircraft and spend many hours at 40,000 feet surrounded by hundreds of different devices -- all of varying quality and state of repair -- containing a rechargeable battery.