Earlier this month we saw researchers seeing success by mixing air into lithium ion based batteries and today we hear of a different experiment aimed at increasing battery life.  As was discussed in the previous article the inevitable formation of crystals inside the battery is what prevents a battery from fully recharging and eventually being unable to hold any charge whatsoever.  Researchers have experimented with adding millions of iron pyrite quantum dots of varying sizes to lithium and sodium ion batteries and found they can make cells which charge more quickly than standard cells and survive more recharging cycles.  There is still a lot of work to be done, if you are interested in reading up on the research you can follow the links from Slashdot.

"The problem is that when the size of the crystals drop below a certain size they begin to react chemically with the electrolytes which prevents them from recharging. Now, however, a team of engineers from Vanderbilt University report in an article published in the journal ACS Nano that they can overcome this problem by making the nanocrystals out of iron pyrite, commonly known as fool's gold."

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