You know those “packing peanuts” that keep your products protected during shipping? It seems they are capable of doing so much more than we thought, including powering your everyday devices! According to Victoria Woollaston of The Daily Mail, researchers have developed a way to transform these peanuts into carbon, which can then be added to lithium batteries found in your most-used gadgets.
To create the carbon blocks, Dr. Vilas Pol and his team at Purdue University heated the foam peanuts at 600°C (1,100°F). They flattened these blocks into microsheets and nanoparticles, then adding them as anodes to lithium batteries. Through testing, they discovered that the packing peanut-based batteries could store around 15% more power than current technology.
Isn’t that amazing?
You can read the original article at The Daily Mail Online, and watch the video to hear more about this scientific breakthrough.