Use ingredients in toys to improve li-ion batteries

Researchers from the Bourns College of California, Riverside have developed a method to use Silly Putty's components - a synthetic rubber toy for children to improve the time. The amount of Li-ion battery between each charge is 3 times higher than industry standards.

Silly Putty was accidentally invented in a study to produce artificial rubber to compensate for the lack of this material in World War II. Researcher James Wright sought to create a high-quality substitute. Boric acid synthetic rubber into silicon oil.

This study failed miserably but the substance was created very special because it was not really solid or liquid. It can stretch like chewing gum, can be flattened with a hammer, can bounce like a ball but it can flow like a pudding. Due to the eye-catching coral color, Silly Putty is stuffed into plastic eggs and sold as toys. Since 1950, more than 300 million Silly Putty has been sold and this product has become the best-selling toy of all time.

Later, Silly Putty plastic began to be used in other commercial applications such as physiotherapy and Apollo astronauts also used it to entertain the journey to the Moon. In addition, in the early 1950s, a version of Silly Putty was used as an insulator in electronic devices thanks to its ability to creep into the corners of a transitional unit. Now engineers at UC Riverside are seeking to exploit this unique material to improve battery life.

Researchers have used a modern variant of one of the main ingredients in Silly Putty to be silicon dioxide (SiO ₂ ) to create a positive electrode for the battery. The reason they chose SiO ₂ is that this compound is basically quartz in powder form and easy to exploit. SiO _{2 is} also non-toxic and can be found from everything from baby toys to fast food. If it can be applied to produce batteries, SiO ₂ will hold a big advantage over rare elements.

Silly Putty Eggs are a favorite children's toy in the world.

The team has shaped SiO ₂ into nanotube-like anodes. This is not the first time that the SiO _{2 has} been tested in a Li-IOn battery, but the previous results were not impressive. This time, when being made into nanotubes, SiO ₂ gives 3 times more energy than carbon anodes. More importantly, these nanotube anodes can undergo 100 charge / discharge cycles while maintaining the energy storage level.

According to the researchers, Silly Putty's anode using anode can go through hundreds of charge / discharge times, exceeding test limits and they are looking to scale up the process to the commercial level. UC Riverside's research results have just been published in Nature.