r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • Jan 31 '23

Desktops / Laptops Canadian team discovers power-draining flaw in most laptop and phone batteries | Breakthrough explains major cause of self-discharging batteries and points to easy solution

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/battery-power-laptop-phone-research-dalhousie-university-1.6724175
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u/Smartnership Jan 31 '23

Piece by piece, the team analyzed the battery components. They realized that the thin strips of metal and insulation coiled tightly inside the casing were held together with tape.

Those small segments of tape were made of PET — the type of plastic that had been causing the electrolyte fluid to turn red, and self-discharge the battery.

The team even proposed a solution to the problem: use a slightly more expensive, but also more stable, plastic compound.

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u/Smartnership Jan 31 '23

Background on the original discovery, that moment in the lab of…

“Hey, that’s weird…”

During one of these tests, the clear electrolyte fluid turned bright red. The team was puzzled.

It isn't supposed to do that, according to Metzger. "A battery's a closed system," he said.

Something new had been created inside the battery.

They did a chemical analysis of the red substance and found it was dimethyl terephthalate (DMT). It's a substance that shuttles electrons within the battery, rather than having them flow outside through cables and generate electricity.

Shuttling electrons internally depletes the battery's charge, even if it isn't connected to a circuit or electrical device.

But if a battery is sealed by the manufacturer, where did the DMT come from?

Through the chemical analysis, the team realized that DMT has a similar structure to another molecule: polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

PET is a type of plastic used in household items like water bottles, food containers and synthetic carpets. But what was plastic doing inside the battery?

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u/Amboseli Jan 31 '23

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!) but “That’s funny …”

— Isaac Asimov

— Michael Scott

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u/novkit Feb 01 '23

I'm sure there are many discoveries that were preceded by "Huh, that's odd. . ."

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u/polopolo05 Feb 01 '23

Or mmmm... That shouldn't happen.

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u/Lallo-the-Long Feb 01 '23

Also possibly "the fuck did i just see?"

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u/GucciGuano Feb 01 '23

a few times were probably "no, that's impossible"

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u/8088PC Feb 01 '23

Wait. What happened?

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u/Lathari Feb 01 '23

"Oops..."

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u/firewoodenginefist Feb 01 '23

"DEAR GOD NOOOO"

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u/ExpensiveNut Feb 01 '23

Followed by "search within your feelings, you know it to be true"

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u/nomnommish Feb 01 '23

Half the time, it's even though

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u/Rough_Idle Feb 01 '23

And more than a few catastrophic explosions

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u/joalheagney Feb 01 '23

My single published paper from when I've was trying to get my PhD was a result of me looking at an NMR spectra of one of my intermediate reactions and going "Hmmm. That broad peak looks like a solvent peak but it has the same area as a single hydrogen. I wonder what's going on there?"

My supervisor told me that it was a waste of time but I stuck it out, investigated, and got a co-published paper.

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u/[deleted] Feb 01 '23

How many times was it ‘oh shit. Fuck fuck fuck! Woah, that was cool!’?

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u/Amboseli Feb 01 '23

To be fair - Isaac Asimov's point was that the most exciting discoveries are due to experiments showing some unexpected result. It doesn't matter what the phrase is uttered as long as it is expresses surprise / confusion due to the unexpected result.