Hello! I am Najib Afghan currently studying entrepreneurship at Grove City College. We studied in the adjacent possible approach to innovation and here is a great example of that.

Cary Pint an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University have come up with an innovative idea to use scrap metal to produce a battery that will last for 13 years.

The inspiration for the idea comes from Baghdad Battery. It consisted of a terracotta pot, a copper sheet and an iron rod along with some trace chemicals that could have been an electrolyte.

The battery will be powerful and easy to build. All you need for this battery to work is: inches long piece of steel, a piece of brass and a jar that can be recycled from the dumpster or junk yard.

Then you soaked the metal pieces in a jar with a solution of water and salt or a solution of water and antifreeze. Next, you apply a voltage to induce a known process called anodization, which restructures the nanoscopic composition of a metal. That exposes the metal’s interior surface and makes it more receptive to storing and releasing energy.

The next step was to place a physical barrier between the two pieces of metal. Lastly, you submerged it in an electrolyte solution made from water and potassium hydroxide, a soap easily purchased online. When connected by wires to a device that generated a current, such as a solar panel, you contraption should work like a car battery.

You can read more about this idea on LifeScience.com on my personal blog here.