this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/37619927

A battery usually hides its nastiest chemistry from view. Inside many rechargeable systems, useful energy moves through liquids that are strongly acidic, alkaline, flammable, corrosive, or difficult to discard. The battery works, until the same chemistry that made it powerful begins to eat away at its parts.

A team in China and Hong Kong has now built a very different kind of battery. Its electrolyte is a neutral water-based solution of magnesium and calcium salts, chemically close to the brines used to coagulate tofu. In tests, the device ran for 120,000 charge cycles, used nonflammable ingredients, and met several disposal safety standards, the researchers in China report.

It is not ready to replace the battery in your phone. But it points toward a cleaner kind of battery for the place where longevity matters most: the electric grid.

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[–] MBech@feddit.dk 52 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Could be decent. Has about 20-25% energydensity of a modern NMC EV battery. While that isn't incredibly groundbreaking, keeping a building sized battery of this kind in an industrial area sounds pretty feasible.

Probably won't ever hear about it again, but fingers crossed it's a good product.

[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 days ago

How weird, the scientists who worked on it all died in various freak accidents in the next couple of months /s

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

or you could go with sodium battery, or LiFePO4, or thermal energy storage at this scale. hell maybe even pumped hydro

[–] MBech@feddit.dk 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Possibly, question is which one fits a given area the best. Pumped hydro needs some place high to pump it. Many places are incredibly flat, but in hilly or mountainy places it has some clear advantages. Thermal has the issue of losing the heat. You need to insulate a "battery" a lot, and at some point it just becomes incredibly expensive for very little results. It's not impossible, but it can be a very expensive solution. LiFePO4 has the drawback of needing lithium, which is pretty rare in most of the world. If what the article says is true, the "water battery" seems to be pretty inexpensive to build with quite available ressources, but the drawback is that it likely needs more space than other options.

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 4 points 2 days ago

storage of heat is also very cheap compared to some other options and can just be using ground around boreholes, especially considering that most of residential energy use is in form of heat. if you have a hill that you don't need you can even put an artificial lake on top of it

there's a speciality resin (that new material) in that battery. resins are nonrecyclable. i don't think it can be 4x cheaper per kg than LiFePO4 battery because of that material

[–] leagman1@feddit.org 0 points 2 days ago

What if we build a mountain with a lake on top.

[–] quick_snail@feddit.nl 5 points 2 days ago

Nickel iron battery electrolyte solution is very easy to discard. Just water it down and put it on crops. It's a fertilizer.

[–] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 22 points 3 days ago (2 children)

the electrode retained 72.67% of its capacity after 120,000 charge cycles MgCl2 and CaCl2 Hex-TADD-COP, short for hexaketone-tetraaminodibenzo-p-dioxin covalent organic polymer. - the tricky part. 48.3 watt-hours per kilogram compare to LFP @90-160 Wh/kg

An aqueous battery using an electrolyte with a pH of 7 and suitable for direct environmental discard https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-69384-2

[–] cybervseas@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Appreciate the link! 48Wh/kg feels like it's in the realm of being usable for some applications! And also sounds more environmentally friendly than other battery chemistries. And also helps diversify the mining/mineral needs for making batteries.

ETA: also omg they included that image in the article 🙂

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

use of water as a solvent limits maximum voltage

wanted to use water to get electricity anyway for a laugh? we have a tool for that: it's called STEAM TURBINE

[–] lauha@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

What is the problem with low voltage?

[–] UltraBlack@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How high is that limit? 4.2V for lithium cells isn't exactly stunning

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 3 points 2 days ago

4-5V is state of the art and pushing it there or beyond that gets very tricky very quickly. pure water has electrochemical window of 1.23V, but you can go a bit over that because at low overvoltage water splitting is slow at most electrode materials. that's why lead battery can have 2V per cell and will generate hydrogen when charged much over nominal voltage

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 18 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Doesn't say what it's input/output is, so maybe that's the damper on this.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 9 points 3 days ago

My new car runs on 65,000 lemons.

[–] homes@piefed.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Exactly. If this could immediately solve the energy crisis, they’d be publishing the specs on this, and we’d all be making them in our kitchens this minute.

It’s just some sub-interesting science experiment, and the results it produced were unremarkable at best.

Not worth the click

[–] icanbrewmushrooms@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

So you'd only be interested in reading an article if it was going to instantly solve all of humanities energy problems overnight? Why bother clicking on any link with such ridiculously high standards?

I don't think that's what they are saying at all, but it doesn't even mention how much power can go in, be sustained, and how much it can discharge. Those are the bare minimum details you'd want out of an article about a battery. The fact it mentions none of that is suspect.

[–] homes@piefed.world 1 points 2 days ago

Why would you think that?

In fact, why would you even bother trying to read my mind via a random Internet comment?

[–] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 0 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Why not read the article? smh. The "input" could be MgCl2 and CaCl2 in a covalent organic polymer (Hexaketone-tetraaminodibenzo-p-dioxin covalent organic polymers).

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That is the STORAGE MEDIUM, and not the input or output, which would be the input power and output power. This is a battery.

[–] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io -2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Right, it's a battery. It's inputs are electrons, and it's outputs are, yes, you guessed it, electrons. I guess I'm just not understanding your question. Would you care to clarify?

[–] vaionko@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago

How fast can you shove those electrons in and how fast do you get them out?

[–] just_another_person@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Voltages, intake and discharge rates.

[–] neuroneiro@lemmy.world 7 points 3 days ago

Another breakthrough technology that will mysteriously disappear & never come to market.

[–] NutWrench@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

This is the bi-monthly "China invents earth shattering technology that we never hear about again" article.

Technological breakthroughs are almost always incremental. So learn to lie convincingly. Say, "lasts 25-30 years" not "300 years."

[–] orbituary@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 days ago

Exxon, Shell, or another massive battery patent owner will buy that tech and put it on lock down.

[–] als@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How is this oniony? Not the onion doesn't mean any news from any source other than the onion.

Also, I feel like I see an article about a breakthrough in battery design every other day. I wonder if any of them will ever actually happen

[–] nocturne@slrpnk.net 5 points 2 days ago

How is this oniony?

Water-Based Battery That Could Last 300 Years Using Tofu Brine Ingredients

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

some of you people itt have never imagined that there could be something like a research dead end and it shows