Batteries could soon last almost forever, by turning liquid batteries into solids

As well as improving charge and lifetime, new material could stop major safety problems with lithium-ion power bricks

New batteries could hold much more charge, last pretty much forever and not be liable to blowing up like existing technology, according to researchers.

MIT and Samsung scientists claim that using solid-state batteries, rather than the existing liquid electrolyte, could fix most of the issues that people have with batteries today.

Most electronics — from phones to cars — now use lithium-ion batteries. Those are usually the best solution, but they also store relatively small amounts of charge, wear out fast, and can blow up.

The researchers claim that the new solid-state electrolytes will be much safer, as well as more effective, holding 20 per cent to 30 per cent more charge. The researchers point out that problems with the liquid electrolyte — which is used in batteries to move charged particles from one place to another, as batteries are charged and discharged — have led to huge worries, including the grounding of all Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets in 2013.

“All of the fires you’ve seen, with Boeing, Tesla, and others, they are all electrolyte fires,” said Gerbrand Ceder, the professor that worked on the new material with five other researchers, in a statement. “The lithium itself is not flammable in the state it’s in in these batteries. [With a solid electrolyte] there’s no safety problem — you could throw it against the wall, drive a nail through it — there’s nothing there to burn.”

Moving towards solid-state batteries has been difficult because it has been tough to find solid materials that could conduct particles as quickly as liquid ones. But the team have analysed the properties of existing lithium-ion materials, and will find the compounds that can conduct quickly enough.

The new batteries also perform much more quickly in the cold, and can provide much more charge. They'll be able to last for hundreds of thousands of cycles, stopping the problem of batteries slowly getting tired.

Scientists have been working hard to fix the problems with existing batteries, which mean that mobiles don't last long and cars can run out of power mid-drive. That includes attempts including phone batteries that could be made out of aluminium, and be able to be drilled and bent.