by snaark » Sat Apr 23, 2016 5:25 pm
If it really works it'd be super dooper, but I'm generally pretty sceptical about such articles (see below). ASAIK (I'm a materials scientist, albeit with some knowledge of electrochemistry) electrode degradation, along with rising cost, is the main hurdle to producing better batteries. The question to ask, however, is whether it can be scaled up to usable batteries that can be mass produced and don't cost a fortune. Most things "nano" tend to be tricky and expensive to manufacture.
I nearly ended by career through one such article. The institute where I previously worked once published a press statement about my work. My research was pretty mundane and innocuous, but they wrote it in such a way that it sounded important to the layman. Some half-witted journalist picked up on it and made it into a public safety story and misquoting me in their article. It wasn't, in fact what I was working on had nothing to do with their story. They just wanted a headline that read "emerging technology is dangerous". Nevertheless some industry bigshots took offence to the story and railed on my boss, who fortunately saw things from my POV. Anyway, I vowed never again to speak to a journalist about fucking anything.