Crack the scientific principle of battery storage decline

Anyone who owns a laptop or cell phone knows that battery life diminishes over time. When you first buy a phone, it can go almost an entire day without charging, but after two or three years you have to charge it frequently. The phenomenon is well known, but no one knows what processes inside batteries cause the problem. Now a group of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy claim to have figured out why battery life is shortened, and may have a way to fix it.

In a typical rechargeable lithium-ion battery, lithium electrons in an electrolyte solution move between two electrodes, creating an electric current that powers the battery. So battery life depends on how many lithium electrons are allowed to move between the poles when charged and when used.

The study found that the electrodes sometimes failed, allowing the manganese ions to move freely and swim to the opposite electrode, a process that would trap lithium electrons. As more and more lithium batteries are captured, the battery's charging capacity is reduced, which in turn reduces the battery's life.