Why It’s So Hard To Make Better Batteries: Crash Course Engineering #32

There are batteries powering so many parts of our everyday lives, so today we’re going to talk about how they work and how we can make them better. We’ll explain how they provide power by discharging ions between a cathode and an anode, and how reversing that process gives us a way of charging them. We’ll also look at how batteries deliver voltage differently over time, leading to discharge curves and some of the work being done to improve the properties of batteries for portable electronics.

Crash Course Engineering is produced in association with PBS Digital Studios.

RESOURCES:

• https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/how-does-a-battery-work/
• http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/power/2-how-do-batteries-work.html
• https://www.explainthatstuff.com/batteries.html https://web.mst.edu/~gbert/BATTERY/battery.html
• https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-batteries-store-an/
• https://www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/science-news/swallowable-sensors-sustain-power-stomach-acid
• https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/archive/understanding_lithium_ion