Researchers from North Carolina State University and Rice University have created a non-toxic, stretchable battery that operates by extracting moisture from the ambient environment – even in climates as dry as the desert. The batteries could be useful in Internet of Things (IoT) applications ranging from wearables to advanced surveillance monitors with built-in kill-switches.

The supply of lithium – the battery material that keeps digital devices humming, EVs racing and renewable energy on the grid – will not meet even half the expected demand by 2040. But ramping up production using current methods is costly and environmentally damaging. In new research published in Nature Communications, a team from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) has applied electrochemistry to the problem, adapting a technique from the world of supercapacitors to pull lithium - and only lithium - directly from water. They used electrochemical intercalation to extract 99% pure lithium from a solution where the ratio of sodium to lithium was 1,000 to 1.

Gas giant orbits its dead star so closely that it takes just 1.4 days to complete a full revolution. At this proximity, planet shouldn’t have survived its star’s red giant phase. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astrophysicists measured the planet’s atmosphere, mass and temperature. They found the planet orbited at a safe distance when its star died and migrated closer billions of years after its death.