A lithium ion battery is quite literally electronic gold. The holy grail of all gadgets that require charged batteries. Which is why scientists and researchers all over the world spend a considerable amount of time and resources trying to improve their quality. If they can improve the duration the battery lasts and reduce it’s production cost, they are bound to have a commercially successful product.

It is to this end that the researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have developed a low cost chemical process that can use glass bottles to manufacture lithium ion batteries which are able to store four times more energy than what is currently the norm. These batteries have the potential to improve the range of electric cars, hybrid electric vehicles, and provide great value to consumers using personal electronic gadgets like cellphones, laptops and the like.

They hit upon the idea of using glass bottles as these contain high purity silicon nano particles. These are required in the construction of the batteries. Plus silicon anodes store up to 10 times more energy than graphite anodes. Although so far their expansion and shrinking during charging has made them rather unstable for use. This science project hopes to rectify that issue and come up with something better.