Oh boy! Idiot TikTok kids is going to start microwaving devices.
Applying 'extreme heat' to lithium-ion batteries reportedly restores their capacity, and I think it's the sustainable tech breakthrough of 2025
Submitted 5 weeks ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
j0ester@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
didn’t 4chan do that once?
LinyosT@sopuli.xyz 5 weeks ago
Yeah they tricked people into believing that Apple added something that allowed users to charge their phones by microwaving them
Doom@ttrpg.network 5 weeks ago
multiple times the big one was to wrap a spoon in duct tape and microwave it or boil bleach and drip alcohol in it to make crystals.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 5 weeks ago
Sure. But we need to see pics, or it didn't happen.
The abstract doesn't mention them re-gaining their old capacity. It only says they shrink. And something about voltage. So I have my doubts. I mean it's nice if my spicy pillow shrinks a bit. But what does that help if it's still nearly dead? And an application in products would be hard to accomplish. At that temperature, all the plastics and the solder are going to melt.
Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Yes. If you aren’t reading any battery tech article with a huge amount of skepticism you are doing it wrong. More than any other tech sector I can think of, battery research is just absolutely plagued with low quality research that consistently gets picked up by media outlets.
drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
I think its less the quality of the research and more this:
Image (This comic is a bit outdated nowadays, but you get the idea).
Except the headlines say “scientists report discovery of miraculous new battery technology using A!”.
Also people don’t realize how long it takes to commercialize battery technology. I think they put them in the same mental category as computers and other electronics, where a company announces something and then its out that same year. The first lithium ion batteries were made in a lab in the 1970s. A person in 2000 could have said “I’ve been hearing about lithium ion batteries for decades now and they’ve never amounted to anything”, and they would be right, but its not because its a bunk technology or the researchers were quacks.
Septimaeus@infosec.pub 5 weeks ago
Hmm, your right. At a guess, this field might represent the maximal combined interest of both scientific and pedestrian readership within technology research, since on the one hand energy density and storage logistics is the key limitation for a ton of desirable applications, and on the other most consumers’ experience with batteries establish them as a major convenience factor in their day-to-day.
vollkorntomate@infosec.pub 5 weeks ago
I hope this article is well peer-reviewed. Otherwise this reads like some LLM came up with the idea
pachrist@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Otherwise this reads as if
some LLM4chan came up with the ideaRemember kids, updating to iOS 7 enables your phone to charge wirelessly in the microwave.
dulce_3t_decorum_3st@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
The “peer” that reviewed it was another LLM.
tias@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
Well if it was a human it wouldn’t be a peer, would it
fox@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
This title is pretty bad, the paper focus is in designing new battery technologies not magically restoring capacity on the batteries we have today.
bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
Is the paper in the article? I couldn’t find it.
Would you be so kind as to link us?
fox@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
it is this one: www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08765-x
svcg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
Is this before or after they reach the spicy pillow stage?
riodoro1@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
The trick is to let them apply this heat themselves.
chrischryse@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I think before, but there’s a trick for spicy pillow just poke a vent hole, trust me I was in IT for 6 years ;p
Franklin@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
i was just thinking i could use an excuse for some skin grafts
Wispy2891@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I tried it on my car but it doesn’t turn on anymore. Deceiving news
Randelung@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Sounds like a 4chan prank, but… 🪦
vga@sopuli.xyz 5 weeks ago
This turns everyone else on, though.
zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
Warning: heating earbuds batteries to over 300F also causes fires
Reading this tells me the author has absolutely 0 idea of how physics work and is nothing but a blogger of consumer grade equipment. People like that should refrain from trying to understand how science or scientists work.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Obviously, physics aren’t done in Fahrenheit.
zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
Had to laugh at your comment. Not that it matters in this case, your ear buds are not going to magically combust at just 150°C
JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 weeks ago
I think you mean they shouldn’t write authoritatively about things they don’t understand, because what you said is really gate keepy. There’s nothing wrong with learning.
Liberteez@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
People shouldn’t compare things to gatekeeping unless they can build a cast iron gate
AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Yes but how can shareholders profit from this??
dzsimbo@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
By not switching to Na based batteries and keeping a lid on Li mining.
3laws@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Even BYD is betting on Na tho.
Aux@feddit.uk 5 weeks ago
By making battery renewing devices.
lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
New ovens will only reach 280°F. But if you subscribe to LG Baking™ Plus™ plan for only $5.99*/mo, you can unlock up to 340°F for all of your essential^†^ baking needs! But wait, if you subscribe to LG Baking™ Plus™ Premium tier for an additional $8.99**/mo, you can unlock up to 425°F and a 20 minute timer!
^* introductory rate for new customers only, 2 year contract required, promotion ends after 1 year and increases to $24.99/mo billed annually^
^** promotional rate only, 5 year contract required, promotion ends after 2 years and increases to $89.99/mo, billed annually^
^† “essential” is defined as items that qualify as food items that require up to 325°F. upon sensing electronic items (batteries, circuit boards, and other non-food items), the contract will be terminated immediately and any funds allocated will be forfeited to LG and its subsidiaries^
Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
Sounds like a horrible idea if not carefully controlled. Perhaps up to 80 degrees in an oil bath could redissolve some of the electrolytes. I guess it could work.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
So you’re saying I SHOULDN’T preheat my toaster oven to 425F???
UH-OH!!!
brb. Gotta put out some fires.
SirActionSack@aussie.zone 5 weeks ago
How is the boiling point of water relevant to something that’s made of plastic and metal?
Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
Well the electrolyte solution is water based so exceeding the boiling point will cause pressure buildup inside.
dubyakay@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
80 degrees what?
See, this is where the problems begin.
brendansimms@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
heat to 80K…oh wait
bfg9k@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
brb chucking my batteries in the oven
it’s a cheap and easy thrill
x00z@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
In the good ol’ days when I ran out of battery and every charger had a different stupid little connector, I often put my phone on the window still or heater to get a little bit of juice to do what I needed to do.
I guess I am a scientist.
rogermiraki@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Wow, this brought back memories of me rubbing my hands against my old Nokia battery in middle school to heat it up and get a couple extra %.
Damage@feddit.it 5 weeks ago
We did the opposite, put it in the freezer
Septimaeus@infosec.pub 5 weeks ago
IIRC freezing accelerates the chemical degradation of lithium ion (especially if you attempt to charge the battery at the same time) and tends to lower both the voltage and amperage of most battery chemistries, but it seems plausible that this might
- temporarily defeat a cell protection circuit, allowing a charging procedure to initialize, or
- delay a thermal failsafe cut-off of a damaged cell long enough to boot or charge a device
Regardless, for those tuning in at home, best to keep your batteries out of the freezer, especially lithium types, unless spicy pillows are what you’re after.
RaoulDook@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Important note near the end of the article - they aren’t saying we should cook batteries really -
“The team’s hypothesis is that the structural disorder developing inside LIBs may become a “tunable parameter” that, if tweaked using chargers at precise voltages to alter said battery composition, could be used to rejuvenate the batteries in our tech without fires.”
This is a good old idea that goes back to the days of desulfating lead batteries with powerful shocks of high-amperage current. Might just need a special Healing Charger that applies the right voltage/current to dissolve the bad crystals in lithium-ion systems
CucumberFetish@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
I remember recovering dead 18650 cells from laptop batteries and “restoring” them with a 12V modded PC PSU. Quite a few of them actually started working again and had some capacity for a few tens of additional cycles. Those cells were never left unattended in a charger and they were always only used in a device you could chuck in a moment’s notice.
10/10 do not recommend.
RaoulDook@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
How did that process work? Did you just connect the +/- ends of the cell to the +/- 12v wires of the PSU and let it feed from the high-amp outputs? Imagine there’s plenty of amps on the GPU and CPU power wires
Tobberone@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Well, there is some data/rumours out there, stemming from a Dutch Tesla forum, that suggests that some fast charging might be beneficial for battery longevity. This seems to corroborate that. I can’t remember the case for always fast charging, though.
drosophila@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
With electric cars you might not even need a special charger so much as a special charging cycle. Its already the norm for cars to tell the charger what voltage and current they want, and its already the norm for cars to carefully control their battery’s temperature during charging.
That’s not to say you’d necessarily be able to do this with just a software update, but its not too far off from the current paradigm.
RaoulDook@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Yeah that’s a good point. Ours uses the same refrigerant system as the AC to cool the battery, and the actual “charger” for the battery is inside the car being controlled by its software etc. The cables that plug in on the outside are technically just power wires, with the charging brains inside the car. That would be amazing if they could update the software to rejuvenate the battery once a year or something.
iAvicenna@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
so putting batteries in the fridge wasn’t useful after all, we should put them in the oven
Dasus@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
so I can now put my spicy pillows in the oven and tell the insurance men the internet told me to?
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Putting my LG Flex which had a boot loop problem due to a soldering issue on the battery solved the problem temporarily!
topherclay@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I’ve known some old people to put their bootloops in the freezer because they think it won’t go stale as fast.
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 weeks ago
this feels like bait
balder1991@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
In reality, this doesn’t affect the existing batteries we have, it’s just for future battery technology.
modus@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Neat! So if I put my phone in the microwave it will reset the battery?
474D@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Only if you want it soggy, air fryer works better
ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
So is a toaster the new wireless charging hub?
Mooseford@lemmy.today 5 weeks ago
Where’s my blowtorch?
MITM0@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Who greenlit this article ?
Ulrich@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
Reminds me of the old days of putting my LG G4 in the freezer
Rolive@discuss.tchncs.de 5 weeks ago
For me that was not so long ago. I still used an LG G4 as permanent car navigation until a year ago or so. I’m still surprised that one didn’t end up bootlooping.
Ulrich@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
Why’d you put it in the freezer if it wasn’t bootlooping? Just like cold phones?
riodoro1@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Wait, nobody came up with this before?
TheBat@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Thanks, climate change.
uhmbah@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Oven, 450?
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Nah, set it to broil for optimal results /s
Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Que dumbasses tossing their iphones in the toaster oven in 3… 2…
SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 5 weeks ago
Microwaving the iphone was close to the right answer.
xavier666@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
What, you didn’t know you had to crank the power to high before microwaving your phone? Rookie mistake
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 5 weeks ago
I love the typo because it covers so many things at once
Queue as in they’re lining up to do it; cue, as in that’s their cue to be stupid; and que (spanish for what) as in what the fuck are they thinking?
boonhet@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
I was gonna say there’s no typo but the comment has been edited. What was it originally?
catloaf@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
¿Que dumbasses?
Ledericas@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
putting it over the stove.