Poor battery life is the number one complaint when it comes to smartphones and laptops. As a wireless society, having to tether ourselves down to power up our gadgets seems more and more a nuisance. And while researchers are looking into wireless charging, if batteries were better we would have to worry less.

電池壽命短是智能手機和筆記本電腦的頭號難題。在無線的社會里，給設備充電時用繩子束縛住自己似乎越來越討厭。雖然研究人員正在尋找無線充電的辦法，但如果有更好的電池我們的擔憂也可以減輕了。

Now, a new technology promises just that. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, have invented a nanowire-based battery that can be recharged hundreds of thousands of times, a significant leap towards a battery that doesn’t require replacing.

現在一個新的技術的就可以做到。來自加利福尼亞大學歐文分校的研究人員發明了一種納米線電池，該電池可以充電幾十萬次而不用更換，這是電池發展的一個顯著飛躍。

Nanowires possess several ideal characteristics for electric storage and transmission. They are highly conductive and thousands of times thinner than a human hair, which means they can be arranged to provide a large surface area for electron transfer. Unfortunately, nanowires are usually very fragile and don’t do well after repeated charging and discharging.

納米線具有電存儲和傳輸的若干理想特性。它們具有高導電性并且比人類的頭發細幾千倍，這意味著它們可以提供一個巨大表面區域供電子轉移。不幸的是，納米線通常是非常脆弱的，并且會在反復充放電后降低性能。

The researchers, whose findings are published in the American Chemical Society’s Energy Letters, have coated gold nanowires in manganese dioxide and cocooned them in a Plexiglas-like gel. This combination keeps all the properties of the nanowires’ intact and makes them resistant to fractures.

研究者給金質納米線包了一層殼，并用樹脂玻璃之類的凝膠薄層進行包裹，這項研究結果發表在《美國化學學會·能源通訊》上。這種結合使納米線的所有性能保持不變，并使其耐折損。

Mya Le Thai, the lead study author, has charged and discharged the battery up to 200,000 times without breaking the nanowires and without loss of capacity.

這項研究的帶頭人妙萊泰給電池進行了200000次充電和放電的操作，而納米線并沒有破損，容量也沒有損失。

“Mya was playing around, and she coated this whole thing with a very thin gel layer and started to cycle it,” said senior author Reginald Penner, chair of UCI’s chemistry department, in a statement. “She discovered that just by using this gel, she could cycle it hundreds of thousands of times without losing any capacity.”

“妙萊泰不停在玩，她給金質納米線包了一層殼并開始給納米線充放電，” 加利福尼亞大學歐文分校化學系主任，資深作家雷金納德在一份聲明中說。“她發現，只要用這種膠，她就可以充放電成百上千次而不失去任何容量。”

“That was crazy,” he added, “because these things typically die in dramatic fashion after 5,000 or 6,000 or 7,000 cycles at most.”

“這太瘋狂了，”他補充說，“因為最多經過5000、6000或7000個(充電)周期，這些物質一般都會明顯失去作用。”

The researchers believe that the combination of the PMMA (plexiglass-like) gel electrolyte and the magnesium oxide gives flexibility and structure to the nanowires, preventing cracking and thus extending their operational life.

研究人員認為，PMMA（有機玻璃等）凝膠電解質和氧化鎂的結合物為納米線提供了可以防止其開裂的靈活性和結構，從而延長其使用壽命。

“The coated electrode holds its shape much better, making it a more reliable option,” Thai said. “This research proves that a nanowire-based battery electrode can have a long lifetime and that we can make these kinds of batteries a reality.”

“被涂層的電極維持自身形態的能力要強得多，因此是更可靠的選項，” 妙萊泰說。“這項研究證明，納米線為基礎的電池電極可以有很長的壽命，我們可以使這種類型的電池的成為現實。”