NJIT scientists aim to triple the life of batteries

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Scientists at the New Jersey Institute of Technology developed high-capacity, printable-on-demand batteries for everyday appliances that are designed to last nearly three times as long as those currently on store shelves.

According to NJIT, traditional AA and AAA cells have capacities of around 300 milliampere hours per gram (mAh/g), a measure of how long a battery will hold a charge. In results published earlier this year in the journal Energy Storage Materials, researchers Zhiqian Wang and Somenath Mitra demonstrated capacities as high as 750 mAh/g.

The difference is that the material used in conventional batteries – zinc and manganese dioxides – delivers fewer electrons per molecule than the periodate – iodine-based chemical compound – they created in the lab. As a result, it takes less of their material to produce the same charge, enabling both smaller, powerful batteries or ones of the same size that last longer.