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A student accidentally created a rechargeable battery that she says could last 400 years

"This thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it’s still going." ⚡️⚡️

Steve Zylius/University of California, Irvine.

UCI doctoral candidate Mya Le Thai has developed a nanowire-based technology that allows lithium-ion batteries to be recharged hundreds of thousands of times.

There's an old saying that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

There's no better example of that than a 2016 discovery at the University of California, Irvine, by doctoral student Mya Le Thai. After playing around in the lab, she made a discovery that could lead to a rechargeable battery that could last up to 400 years. That means longer-lasting laptops and smartphones and fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in landfills.

A team of researchers at UCI had been experimenting with nanowires for potential use in batteries, but found that over time the thin, fragile wires would break down and crack after too many charging cycles. A charge cycle is when a battery goes from completely full to completely empty and back to full again.

But one day, on a whim, Thai coated a set of gold nanowires in manganese dioxide and a Plexiglas-like electrolyte gel.

batteries, renewable energy, energy, renewable batteries, rechargeable batteries, innovationBatteries being recycled at WRWA, London. Nov ‘21Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

"She started to cycle these gel capacitors, and that's when we got the surprise," said Reginald Penner, chair of the university's chemistry department. "She said, 'this thing has been cycling 10,000 cycles and it's still going.' She came back a few days later and said 'it's been cycling for 30,000 cycles.' That kept going on for a month."

This discovery is mind-blowing because the average laptop battery lasts 300 to 500 charge cycles. The nanobattery developed at UCI made it though 200,000 cycles in three months. That would extend the life of the average laptop battery by about 400 years. The rest of the device would have probably gone kaput decades before the battery, but the implications for a battery that that lasts hundreds of years are pretty startling.

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“Mya was playing around, and she coated this whole thing with a very thin gel layer and started to cycle it,” said Penner added. “She discovered that just by using this gel, she could cycle it hundreds of thousands of times without losing any capacity.”

“That was crazy,” he added, “because these things typically die in dramatic fashion after 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cycles at most. ”"The big picture is that there may be a very simple way to stabilize nanowires of the type that we studied," Penner said. "If this turns out to be generally true, it would be a great advance for the community." Not bad for just fooling around in the laboratory.

Since her discovery, Mya Le Thai has gone on to a successful career as the Principal Scientist with the Enevate Corporation,

This article originally appeared eight years ago.

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Our lives would look very different without these items invented by women.

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Maybelline New York Beauty & Beyond

Coffee filters. Dishwashers. Hair brushes. Windshield wipers. Computer programming language. Try to imagine how your day would go without these things.

Unless you live in a cabin in the woods and couldn't care less about modern conveniences (in which case, you're probably not reading this), the answer is "not well."

Think about it: Getting ready for work probably took people 10 times as long without paper filters to make coffee, hair brushes to tame bed-head, or windshield wipers for safe driving in storms. Then, of course, once you finally got to there, you'd be doing all your research, correspondence, and clerical work without the help of a computer.

Anyone else hyperventilating yet?

[rebelmouse-image 19477745 dam="1" original_size="700x478" caption="Even Oscar Wilde didn't find it amusing. Photo via Metropolitan Museum of Art/Wikimedia Commons." expand=1]Even Oscar Wilde didn't find it amusing. Photo via Metropolitan Museum of Art/Wikimedia Commons.

The reason life no longer looks like that time-consuming nightmare is because a number of brilliant women invented things to help make our day-to-day a whole lot easier.

Here's a look at five of them.

1. Melitta Bentz streamlined the coffee-making process.

[rebelmouse-image 19477746 dam="1" original_size="700x363" caption="Bentz and her marvelous invention. Photo by Otto Sarony/Wikimedia Commons." expand=1]Bentz and her marvelous invention. Photo by Otto Sarony/Wikimedia Commons.

You know how those nifty little paper sleeves keep coffee grinds out of your morning (afternoon, evening) cup o' Joe? Well that's all thanks to Melitta Bentz, a German woman who figured out that using paper instead of cloth to filter coffee is much more efficient.

Before she patented her invention in 1908, people used to put coffee grinds in a small cloth bag, which then went into boiling water. This often resulted in some gritty residue at the bottom of a cup of coffee. But by using a piece of paper from her son's notebook and a pot with a few holes punched in it, Benz prevented that effect. She also essentially invented the pour over method, which coffee lovers uphold to this day.

2. Mary Anderson made car travel much safer.

[rebelmouse-image 19477747 dam="1" original_size="700x350" caption="Anderson and a sketch of her "window cleaning device." Photos via Wikimedia Commons and the U.S. Patent Office." expand=1]Anderson and a sketch of her "window cleaning device." Photos via Wikimedia Commons and the U.S. Patent Office.

It seems fitting that the windshield wiper was invented by a woman who was annoyed at being stuck in New York City traffic.

Anderson was visiting the bustling city in 1902 and decided to take a streetcar because it was snowing. However, the driver kept having to get out of the car to wipe off the windshield, which delayed her travel further. And that's when she thought, "If only there were some device that could wipe away precipitation and allow drivers to remain in their cars."

When she got home, she drew a sketch of the first windshield wiper. A year later, she had a patent for what she called a "window cleaning device."

3. Mabel Williams helped girls pump up their eyelashes.

Photo via Maybelline.

For a long time, women weren't able to do much to make their eyelashes appear longer and fuller, though many had used a variety of ingredients in an attempt to try.

So in 1915, a woman named Mabel Williams mixed coal dust, vaseline and oils for sheen to create one of the first mascaras.  Her brother saw the potential and developed a mail-order brush called Lash-Brow-Ine and launched the company — the Maybell Laboratories in Chicago.

The product caught on through print advertising, and two years later, Williams used it to launch the beauty brand — Maybelline — which might sound familiar.

4. Grace Hopper is part of the reason computers do what we want them to do (for now, anyway).

Hopper working with UNIVAC I — the first commercial electronic computer. Photo via The Smithsonian/Wikimedia Commons.

The reason computers work for us is because we feed them instructions that are then translated into code. Hopper led the team that's responsible for the first program that did that.

After she joined the U.S. Navy during World War II, she was assigned to work on the Mark I computer at Harvard. Her team created the first computer language compiler, which was the precursor for the Common Business Oriented Language, or COBOL, that would end up becoming a computer language used worldwide.

Of course today, computers are teaching us a thing or two, but none of their complexity would be possible without this first, pivotal step.

5. Lyda Newman designed a much more useful hairbrush.

[rebelmouse-image 19477750 dam="1" original_size="986x758" caption="Lyda Newman's revolutionary brush design. Photo via Wikimedia Commons." expand=1]Lyda Newman's revolutionary brush design. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Hairbrushes today help us keep our locks from looking like knotty messes, and that's largely thanks to Newman's ingenious design. Her brush had evenly-spaced rows of bristles with open slots to guide things like dust and dandruff away from the hair. The hairdresser got a patent for it in 1898, but her work for women didn't stop there.

She also worked with the African-American branch of the Woman Suffrage Party to help women get the vote in New York City. Who says activism and style can't go together?

Women inventors are responsible for so many things on which we've come to rely, yet their work often goes unsung.

It's about time we give them the spotlight they deserve.

To learn more about these and other women inventors, check out this video:

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The inspiring reason this chemist is teaching girls about the science behind makeup.

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Maybelline New York Beauty & Beyond

For most of her life, Balanda Atis has had trouble finding a foundation that matches her skin tone. And she's far from the only woman of color to have this problem.

Growing up in a Haitian community in East Orange, New Jersey, she often heard women in her community voice their frustrations over it. There simply weren't enough specific foundation colors out there for non-white women, so they'd end up using shades that didn't really suit their skin tone.

Even after Atis started working in makeup development at L'Oréal over 18 years ago, this skin tone issue remained prevalent. It actually wasn't until 2011 that their foundation line got the diversity makeover it needed. And that's largely thanks to her.

Atis working in the lab. All photos via Upworthy.

Back in 2006, Atis began the challenging task of fixing the diversity gap in the brand's foundation line.

Their research and development team had just shared a slew of new foundations that were meant to do just that, but when Atis tried them, she told her department head that she still couldn't find her skin tone match. So he turned to her and said, "fix it."

With that, Atis began traveling all over the country collecting data on the wide spectrum of skin tones out there.

Atis and two colleagues ending up doing a lot of their reconnaissance work during their time off on nights and weekends — mostly because it had become a labor of love. As a result, it took several years to collect all the information they needed to start creating more shades. However, in retrospect, the effort was more than worth it.

She wasn't just working to correct an issue at L'Oréal — deepening and expanding foundation shade range has been an industry-wide challenge for decades.

"What drove us on those 12-hour days was knowing that we were solving a problem for women," Atis says.

Atis and a colleague testing foundation pigments.

For example, they learned that adding ultramarine blue, a less widely used color, to certain shades created deep, pure foundation colors that maintained their vibrancy. Previously, darker foundation colors tended to look flat and dull on skin.

When Atis presented their revolutionary findings, L'Oréal put her on the task of developing multi-cultural beauty products full-time as part of a new lab dedicated exclusively to this work. That lead to the creation of more than 30 new foundation shades, which were implemented across L'Oréal in 2011. Needless to say, her involvement was a total game changer.

Several of L'Oréal's brands have since utilized her research including Maybelline, Dermablend, L'Oréal Paris and Lancome.

Moreover, with more women of color becoming the faces of beauty brands, the industry is making it clear that representation matters to them. And thanks to chemistry pioneers like Atis, their image can be accurately enhanced.

That said, Atis and her team are always working to expand the L'Oréal library of shades for women of color. But Atis also has another important focus.  

Today, as head of the Multicultural Beauty Lab at L'Oréal, Atis is showing girls how they too can make a huge difference in the world using science.

Together with her chemistry team, Atis explains to these avid students how they mix and create new foundations, taking into consideration factors like texture and the way light affects different pigments. The hope is that they're inspiring these chemistry enthusiasts to pursue a career in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math fields).

The benefits of this learning program are two-fold for L'Oréal — they're infusing the STEM world with much-needed diversity and possibly increasing the pool of beauty chemists who see what's lacking in the makeup department.

Atis teaches young women about the chemistry behind making foundations.

"I think it's really important for young girls to learn about STEM, and the opportunities are so big," explains Shauna-Kaye Scotland, senior chemist at L'Oréal. "They need to know that they exist."

The experience seems to do just as much good for the scientists themselves.

"I realized the little bit I was able to share really has a huge impact on them and their future," Atis says.

There's so much possibility that comes with learning the science behind how things are made. As long as women like Atis keep opening the door to interested young women, there's no telling how diverse the spectrum of new women scientists will become.

Learn more about Atis' work with the Multicultural Beauty Lab here:

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What if cement could help save the planet? Thanks to this discovery, it might.

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UCLA Optimists

Earlier this year, a Swiss startup began removing CO2 from the atmosphere using a large vacuum-like machine.

Their ultimate goal is to start reversing the damaging effects of climate change by reducing CO2 — a major component of atmospheric pollution — on a global scale.

While the machine's development is a huge step forward, one little problem remains — where does all that collected CO2 go?

Gaurav Sant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA, has one solution: turn it into cement.

(And we're not just talking about any old cement.)

Gaurav Sant. Photo via UCLA.

Sant has figured out how to make a stronger, more lightweight, more structurally sound cement out of — wait for it — CO2.

Believe it or not, the regular construction of cement is responsible for 9% of the world's CO2 emissions. And it is widely accepted that CO2 emissions play a huge role in global warming and, by effect, climate change.

Sant, along with his team at UCLA, decided to try to turn two negatives into a positive. They found a way to integrate CO2 into the production of cement, thereby keeping it out of the atmosphere and upcycling it into something useful and even profitable.  

It all started from tiny cement cylinders created by Sant's 3D printer.

Sant with his 3D printer. Photo via UCLA.

Well, that and a pretty important discovery of how CO2 can help accelerate the cement-making process.

In simplest terms, Sant's team discovered that the CO2 in flue gas streams from coal and natural gas power plants accelerates the mineral-making processes that can be used to create cementing agents. They decided to use CO2 to produce a new type of concrete that they've named CO2NCRETETM.

Curious how they did that? Here's the breakdown.

When a mineral called portlandite absorbs CO2, it turns into limestone, which is a cementing agent. While this process normally takes years to happen naturally, Sant's team figured out how to make it happen quickly — 450 pounds of CO2 into several tons of CO2NCRETETM quickly — and efficiently using their 3D printer.

Unlike traditional cement-making on a construction site, 3D technologies allow them to create basic construction pieces out of their new CO2-based concrete that fit together perfectly.

This means they can make cement pieces that are stronger, more lightweight, and more structurally sound.

Sant with a fellow researcher creating cones of CO2NCRETETM. Photo via UCLA.

"As a child that played with Legos, I have long recognized that the idea of constructing buildings and infrastructure like a large Lego set is (a) fast, (b) intuitive, and, (c) offers improved quality control since 'factory made' pieces are simply assembled on site," Sant explains in an email.  

What sort of impact could this have on reducing global CO2 emissions? Turns out, a pretty big one.

[rebelmouse-image 19475646 dam="1" original_size="600x338" caption="Traditional concrete being poured. Photo by Circe Denyer/PublicDomainPictures.net." expand=1]Traditional concrete being poured. Photo by Circe Denyer/PublicDomainPictures.net.

According to Sant and his team, if CO2NCRETETM were to be mass-produced globally, it could reduce CO2 emissions from traditionally made cement by 50%. And since those emissions currently make up 9% of all CO2 emissions on the planet, that's no small amount.

What's more, since there's been little change made in the construction industry over the last two centuries, it's primed for an efficiency makeover.

"CO2NCRETETM has the potential to serve as an example of how CO2 emissions — even those associated with dilute CO2 streams — can be repurposed to create value and minimize environmental impact," writes Sant.

[rebelmouse-image 19475647 dam="1" original_size="1280x854" caption="Photo by Robert Jones/Pixabay." expand=1]Photo by Robert Jones/Pixabay.

And it's not like this goal is a faraway dream. They've made incredible progress on this new cement and are starting to shop it around.

They've figured out how to streamline the cement-making process so it takes much less time and energy than it did initially. They've also done an analysis of the construction market and see huge potential for such a sustainable product.

"This is especially significant as jurisdictions, globally, including states and nations, seek to limit CO2 emissions and impose CO2 penalties on industrial processes," writes Sant.

And in terms of progress with CO2 capture, Sant's work could offer an economically viable alternative to storing the CO2 underground, which can get pretty expensive.

If the world recognizes the economic value of upcycled cement along with the environmental impact, this discovery could revolutionize the future of construction.

[rebelmouse-image 19475648 dam="1" original_size="1280x720" caption="Photo by Pexels/Pixabay." expand=1]Photo by Pexels/Pixabay.

Engineering solutions like this can offer a way to mitigate climate change and be profitable at the same time. Now it's just about keeping an open mind and seeing the enormous potential in a small, concrete cylinder.

As for Sant and his associates, they're just thrilled to be on the precipice of real, necessary change.

"As humans, we all want to make positive impact," says Sant. "To be a part of the solution is a very empowering accomplishment that we wish to socialize."

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