Rechargeable zinc battery
Channel: Stanford ENERGY
Date: 2016-06-20

Rechargeable zinc batteries are often unstable, because metal fibers called dendrites, which form on the electrodes during charging, can cause the battery to short circuit. Now, Stanford engineer Yi Cui and colleagues have re-designed zinc-metal batteries to prevent shorting. The Stanford team, led by Cui and Shougo Higashi, placed an insulator between the battery's electrodes to trap dendrites as they form. The researchers successfully recharged their experimental battery more than 800 times. The new design has potential applications for grid-scale energy storage and to improve the performance of other types of metal batteries. 

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