New Microbatteries, Real or Hoax? A 2040 Penny?

I’ve enjoyed watching our power sources improve over time. Batteries have been around since about the year 1800 depending on what you count as a battery. Eleven years ago, there was a breakthrough announced in very small batteries, and we are still waiting to be able to buy and use them.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, it was announced a decade ago, developed new microbatteries that were the most powerful yet[1]. These tiny batteries, only a few millimeters in size, offer both power and energy, and can be tuned over a wide range on the power-versus-energy scale by tweaking their structure[3]. The batteries owe their high performance to their internal three-dimensional microstructure[1].

“The batteries are rechargeable and can charge 1,000 times faster than competing technologies — imagine juicing up a credit-card-thin phone in less than a second. “[1]

The new microbatteries outperform even the best supercapacitors and could drive new applications in radio communications and compact electronics[3]. They can potentially revolutionize various industries, such as personal medical devices and implants, where the battery is currently an enormous brick connected to tiny electronics and wires[1].

The researchers, led by William P. King, the Bliss Professor of mechanical science and engineering, published their results in the April 16 issue of Nature Communications[3]. King stated, “This is a whole new way to think about batteries. A battery can deliver far more power than anybody ever thought”[3].

As of now, the researchers are working on integrating their batteries with other technologies[1].

Fishy Penny

Original link here. What’s going on here? A hoax? The current year is 2024. I suppose it could be a scratched 2010 penny.

The penny used to show the assembled microbattery in the published article has a date in the future, 2040 if you look at the high res version. Fishy, yet there it is still there on Phys.org and ScienceDaily.com from 11 years ago.

Is it a scam? After more than a decade there are zero working versions of these super microbatteries we can buy or see to validate these claims. 

Where are These Batteries Now?

While there are no working consumer versions of King’s microbattery technology that we can validate after more than a decade, the credibility of the research, King’s background, the funding sources, and the collaborations and partnerships associated with the project suggest that it is not a scam. The limited adoption of the technology may be due to various factors, such as technical challenges, safety concerns, competition from other battery technologies, and cost and manufacturing constraints.

That, of course, is an unsatisfying answer when a decade ago we got excited about super thin batteries which charge 1,000 times faster.

Citations:

^{[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130416151929.htm
[2] https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=127750
[3] https://phys.org/news/2013-04-small-size-big-power-microbatteries.html
[4] https://budgetlightforum.com/t/small-in-size-big-on-power-new-microbatteries-the-most-powerful-yet/17923
[5] https://www.materialstoday.com/energy/news/microbatteries-made-more-powerful/}