Could Mushrooms Be The Next Lithium Ion Battery?

Very soon, we may be able to use mushrooms to replace lithium ion batteries.

Researchers at the University of California-Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering released a statement on September 29 saying that portabella mushrooms may actually be an eco-friendly way to replace lithium ion batteries.

The engineers looked into this particular breed of mushroom because it is very porous, so it can allow water and air to pass through. The more porous a battery is, the more storage it creates. They also looked into the potassium salt concentration levels in the mushrooms and noticed that they were high, meaning that the storage capacity will increase over time.

"With battery materials like this," Brennan Campbell, a UCR graduate student in the Materials Science and Engineering program, said in a statement, "future cell phones may see an increase in run time after many uses, rather than a decrease, due to apparent activation of blind pores within the carbon architectures as the cell charges and discharges over time."

Moreover, mushrooms are a cheaper and more sustainable alternative to graphite, which is what makes up most batteries.