IBM found a way to make a battery with materials from seawater instead of cobalt or nickel which are harmful to the environment, and it charges much faster.

Lithium-ion batteries are just as important as solar panels and wind turbines in our pursuit of sustainable energy. The use of lithium-ion technology is sustainable, however, its materials are not. When the battery has served its purpose, if it’s not disposed of correctly, it has a profoundly negative impact on the planet. Furthermore, the making of the batteries involves sourcing of heavy metals that are expensive and come at a substantial humanitarian and environmental cost.

In search of a better option, IBM found a way to make a battery that relies on materials from seawater instead. Testing revealed that the new battery is just as good as the one made with heavy metals, such as cobalt and nickel.

In retaliation to the unethical practice of how heavy metals are attained, as well as the damage these metals cause when they leak out into the environment, companies like IBM have taken a considerable interest in developing alternatives that don’t require the use of heavy metals.

Might interest some.

Think of a train coming down the tracks to a switch point where it could go either to the right or the left—and it always goes to the right.

Photosynthetic organisms have a similar switch point. After sunlight is absorbed, energy transfers rapidly to a protein called the reaction center. From this point, the electrons could move either to an A-branch (or “right-track”) set of molecules, or to a B-branch (“left-track”) set of identical molecules.

New research from Washington University in St. Louis and Argonne National Laboratory coaxes electrons down the track that they typically don’t travel—advancing understanding of the earliest light-driven events of photosynthesis. The findings were published Dec. 31 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).