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I find myself needing my phone the most when my battery is the lowest. It’s the Murphy’s Law of the connectivity era. And the more the device can do, the more juice you are likely to use. The panicked Arnold Schwarzenegger meme urging us to “get to the charger” sums up much of our pocket tech culture.
Yet, the future may see more juice than The Running Man himself. Toyota Research Institute of North America (TRINA) scientists have made a breakthrough centered on magnesium batteries. The innovation may provide a host of benefits for phone and car batteries.
In theory, magnesium metal is safer and more energy-dense than current lithium batteries. Lithium metal, in its natural form, is unstable and can ignite when exposed to air. To keep the batteries we use daily safe, ions are taken from the lithium metal and embedded into graphite rods, which are then used in batteries. The absence of actual metal limits the amount of battery power.
Magnesium, however, is more stable with the potential to store more energy. Research on this approach was limited because a magnesium-friendly electrolyte did not exist.
Until now.

Toyota principal scientist and chemical engineer Rana Mohtadi was researching hydrogen storage materials and their relevance to fuel cell technology. Because, you know, that’s what scientists and engineers do. While talking with her colleges, Mohtadi heard many of them discuss the ...