Recent Comments

    cartilage-like material to make the batteries tagged posts

    Cartilage could be key to safe ‘Structural Batteries’

    January 14, 2019, Categories  Technology/Electronics, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    Ahmet Emrehan Emre, a biomedical engineering PhD candidate, casts a manganese oxide slurry onto a sheet of aluminum foil to serve as the cathode of a prototype structural battery. Image credit: Evan Dougherty/Michigan Engineering
    Ahmet Emrehan Emre, a biomedical engineering PhD candidate, casts a manganese oxide slurry onto a sheet of aluminum foil to serve as the cathode of a prototype structural battery. Image credit: Evan Dougherty, Michigan Engineering

    Your knees and your smartphone battery have some surprisingly similar needs, a University of Michigan professor has discovered, and that new insight has led to a “structural battery” prototype that incorporates a cartilage-like material to make the batteries highly durable and easy to shape.

    The idea behind structural batteries is to store energy in structural components – the wing of a drone or the bumper of an electric vehicle, for example. They’ve been a long-term goal for researchers and industry because they could reduce weight and extend range...

    Read More