When you think of a traditional battery cell you think in terms of metals and not in terms of wood. This may soon change as the scientists at the University of Maryland prove to the scientific community that wood is actually an ideal material to build a battery with.

Liangbing Hu, Teng Li and their team of researchers at the University of Maryland experienced during their experiments that wood fibers are supple enough to let their sodium-ion battery last more than 400 charging cycles. This puts it the list of longest lasting nano batteries.

Wood fibers that make up a tree once held mineral-rich water, and so are ideal for storing liquid electrolytes, making them not only the base but an active part of the battery, said Hu. Despite charging and discharging hundreds of times the wood remained intact, although it did get wrinkled up.

Pushing sodium ions through tin anodes often weaken the tin’s connection to its base material,but the wood fibers are soft enough to serve as a mechanical buffer, and thus can accommodate tin’s changes. This is the key to our long-lasting sodium-ion batteries, said Li. This is one science project to watch out for in the future.