Like in the human body: ultrafast conductor will increase the power, capacity and speed of batteries

Researchers have made a gel from molecules that repel or attract water, moving charged ions.

Scientists from the United States have created an ionic superconductor modeled after human body cells, which could significantly speed up the operation of batteries. The article about this discovery was published in the journal Wiley Advanced Materials.

In nature, some living cells (hydrophilic) can absorb water, swelling, while others, hydrophobic, repel it. This allows the body to quickly move charged ions through a kind of “checkpoints” through special channels. Thanks to this, the human body conducts a large amount of electrical energy.

A team of five researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Washington State University used knowledge of body chemistry to build a network of nanoparticles in the form of a thin gel film. It allows you to build molecules that repel or absorb water in the right order to create logic gates, as in computer calculations.

During the experiment, scientists found that the “superhighway” greatly increased the movement of ions compared to a more traditional technology called electrophoresis. As notes the website Popular Mechanics, it is used in the creation of lithium-ion batteries, the main characteristics of which depend on the rate of ion flow: the battery's output power, recharge time and capacity.

Organic mixed ion-electron conductors have already aroused considerable interest in the field of biosensors, soft robotics, neuromorphic computing and medicine. The ability to enhance ion transport at the nanoscale in such materials, as well as to control ion movement, opens up new functional possibilities for mixed-conductance devices that are printable, stretchable, and also biocompatible.