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This Phone Battery Lasts For 400 Years, Where's The Headphone Socket?

This Phone Battery Lasts For 400 Years, Where's The Headphone Socket?

A student invented it by accident.

Mel Ramsay

Mel Ramsay

A student has accidentally stumbled across the invention that could save 2016.

Mya Le Thai is currently studying for her PhD at the University of California. She and her team were looking at how to design better nanowires for use in normal rechargeable batteries, reports Business Insider.

While testing, Mya realised that she had accidentally made a battery that can last for 400 years. I swear to God.

If this goes into mass-production, our lives will change forever. No longer will you have to carry a charging cable everywhere you go. Looking for somewhere to sit in Costa Coffee which happens to be near a plug socket? Forget about it. How about those times your charger only works when you wrap it around the phone three times? NO WORRIES FOR YOU, MY FRIEND. You'll be dead four times over by the time this little beauty packs in.

via GIPHY

The battery is basically nanowires made of gold and embedded in a special electrolyte gel. After intense testing, the team realised that the battery survived 200,000 charge cycles in three months. Not only that, but it didn't lose any performance.

What does that mean for us? Basically, that the battery could charge a mobile phone or laptop for 400 years. So 399 years after they're out of date anyway.

Reginald Penner, leader of the chemistry faculty of the University, said: "That was crazy. Usually these batteries decline rapidly after only five or six thousand cycles, seven thousand at the most."

They still don't quite understand why the gold and gel works this way. And, as we know, gold is pretty expensive so they're currently looking at alternatives. So don't throw your portable charger out just yet.

Featured image credit: NBC

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Topics: Phones and Gadgets, US News, technology news, Mobile Phones