The improvement of lithium batteries continues unstoppable, but who wouldn't be surprised to know that there is also a battery whose capacity increases with use? A respectable research team claims to have developed it: it is a special “ferroelectric battery”. Forgive me for my skepticism, after all it's just a matter of reversing a bit of thermodynamics.
The stubbornness of the researchers, however, goes beyond the banal "system" criticisms. The team continues undaunted to churn out studies and papers.
I would dismiss everything with a laugh if this laboratory did not belong to one of the greatest pioneers in the field of batteries. He's the inventor of lithium batteries, that one John Goodenough who at 96 years old continues to research and publish. This is the paper that made more people jump in the chair.
Goodenough and his collaborators have developed a non-flammable lithium battery that has a density twice that of traditional batteries. A graph in this paper illustrates an increase in capacity after the first 300 charging cycles. An improvement that can be enjoyed for a long time, considering the estimated life of this battery: 23.000 cycles.
A ferroelectric battery
Maria Helena Braga, associate professor and head of the department of engineering and physics at the University of Porto in Portugal is one of Goodenough's collaborators and co-signer of other papers on the subject.
“I don't understand the amazement about this battery: this universe is based entirely on the increase in entropy”. The professor asserts that their glass electrolyte is a material ferroelectric , and like all those materials it has the property of presenting one electric polarization even in the absence of electric field. When these materials are polarized with the application of an electric field they maintain the polarization even after the field itself is turned off.
Braga has published a part of the studies also in the magazine Materials Theory, and declares that his group works with some companies to sell the license for this technology.
More powerful and lighter
Such a battery does not (would?) only have the ability to improve with increasing temperatures. It not only has (would?) more capacity than others, but also greater lightness.
