At first glance it looks like a sports energy gel—one you can flex, squeeze, and practically bend in half without breaking it. But this malleable packet is actually a futuristic new battery—one with more voltage than your average AA and a practically unheard of recharge time of around one minute.

The new aluminum-based battery is the work of an eclectic team of chemists, material scientists and engineers led by Hongjie Dai of Stanford University. In a scientific paper published today in the journal Nature, Dai and his colleagues explain how it works and why they believe their prototype may eventually phase out the rechargeable batteries on the market today.

"The bendable capability of the aluminum battery [also] makes it attractive to wearable devices," Dai says, "and the low electrode cost, safety and long cycle life could be appealing to grid-scale electric storage."

Right now, each prototype battery packet holds about 2 volts max. That's about half of what you'd expect from lithium-ion, the battery tech that's probably in your mobile phone right now. But the scientists believe that raising that voltage limit (as is what happened with lithium ion) is just a matter of time and tinkering. The other current hold-up is that while aluminum-based batteries hold the promise of being remarkably cheap, one particular product used in Dai's battery (ionic liquid electrolyte) is pretty darn expensive, chiefly because there's not yet a big commercial demand for it.

"The bendable capability of the aluminum battery [also] makes it attractive to wearable devices."

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

So Dai's aluminum battery has some major challenges to overcome. But let us repeat: It charges in one minute. That's not just fast compared to your phone's battery, which normally takes about 10 to 30 minutes. "It is getting close to the charge/discharge behaviors of a supercapacitor," Dai says. And while many prototype rechargeable batteries lose their gusto after multiple recharges, 7,500 cycles didn't even dent this battery's electrical capacity.

Going beyond its flexibility, the battery is also incredibly safe (unlike, says, commonly used battery tech such as lead-acid). During their experiments, Dai and his colleagues took a drill to a working battery. While they obviously broke it, there were no dangerous leaks or other disasters.

"Our battery has everything else you'd dream that a battery should have."

This is far from the first attempt at an aluminum battery. Because of the advantages we just mentioned, and because most of the materials involved in making them are so cheap and fairly environmentally friendly, scientists have been working on developing rechargeable aluminum batteries for years. Previous research ran up against a host of roadblocks: shamefully low voltages, material breakdown on the cathode side (for your AA, that's the nubby bit), or batteries that would fizzle into worthlessness after less than 100 recharge cycles.

Dai's team stumbled upon a solution. The addition of graphite—both within the battery and used in a foamy, porous point at the cathode side—fixed many of these issues. When used as a cathode, "the highly porous structure [of the graphite] lowers the barrier of the electrochemical reactions and allows fast charge and discharge," Dai says.

While the researchers are still working on increasing the voltage and lowering the material cost, "our battery has everything else you'd dream that a battery should have: inexpensive electrodes, good safety, high-speed charging, flexibility and long cycle life," Dai says in a press release. "I see this as a new battery in its early days. It's quite exciting."

Read next:

We've been making exoskeleton super-legs all wrong

The 75 movies every man should see

5 cooking techniques you should know by know

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io