A battery usually hides its nastiest chemistry from view. Inside many rechargeable systems, useful energy moves through liquids that are strongly acidic, alkaline, flammable, corrosive, or difficult to discard. The battery works, until the same chemistry that made it powerful begins to eat away at its parts.
A team in China and Hong Kong has now built a very different kind of battery. Its electrolyte is a neutral water-based solution of magnesium and calcium salts, chemically close to the brines used to coagulate tofu. In tests, the device ran for 120,000 charge cycles, used nonflammable ingredients, and met several disposal safety standards, the researchers in China report.
It is not ready to replace the battery in your phone. But it points toward a cleaner kind of battery for the place where longevity matters most: the electric grid.
I can’t believe every time I’ve been to a Japanese restaurant, they’ve been offering me a phone charger in the form of miso soup. I must have come across as a complete dunce.
“Did you offer them the complimentary phone charger?”
“Yeah, but, uh…”
“But what?”
“They…well, they drank it.”
“They drank the battery fluid?!”
“Yeah. I mean it’s technically non toxic. Said it tasted great.”
“Hmm, customer is always right I guess. How are they doing with the nigiri? Were they able to grill it okay with the shichirin?”
“They definitely enjoyed it, but it also got a little weird. They called it a hibachi, remarked about its pleasant glow and heat, and then took the set of skewers I had given them, held them kind of like tweezers or tongs, grabbed the nigri with them and ate the whole thing raw.”
“They ate it raw?!”
“Yep. Said it was the best sushi they’ve had, too.”
“Alright, just give me a moment to think. We need to avoid shaming them, but one of them is bound to visit Japan at some point. I think I’m going to have to call the prime minister and get ahead of this.”
“And what? Rewrite every history book and have every citizen change their habits?”
“How much did that slab of bluefin cost? How many pieces of sushi can it make? What does a piece of sushi sell for?”
[Sigh] “Alright, I’ll get you in touch with her.”
Similar energy as this old video
Thank you! That was hilarious. I am truly honored.