Scientists Rebooted This Forgotten Battery—and It Recharges in Seconds. This Could Be the Future of Energy.

4 min readHere’s what you’ll learn when you read this story...In 1901, Thomas Edison patented a nickel-iron battery, which didn’t initially catch on.An international research team recently reinvented Edison’s invention with modern nanotechnology to improve the battery’s charging speed and performance.The battery can recharge in seconds and last up to 12,000 charge cycles, making it a promising energy storage option over lithium-ion alternatives.Some of science’s best ideas come from the past. The heliocentrism at the heart of the Copernican Revolution originated some 1,800 years earlier in the mind of Aristarchus of Samos, a Greek astronomer. The first steam turbine arose in first-century Alexandria—not 19th-century London. Louis Pasteur’s germ theory, published in 1857, contains surprising similarities with many of the ideas of Italian physician Girolamo Fracastoro from three centuries prior. Time and again, old ideas from the past can be reimagined with modern insights that transform them into future technologies.The same is definitely true of batteries. At the turn of the 20th century, more cars on the road were electric than gas-powered, and in the 21st century, what’s old is new again, as scientists look for ways to improve battery performance. Now one of those early battery designs—a nickel-iron battery patented in 1901 by Thomas Edison—is getting a closer look. An international team of scientists is developing a new kind of nickel-iron battery that can charge in seconds and last a staggering 12,000 charge cycles. The details of this next-generation Edison idea were published in the journal Small in August 2025.Back in the early 1900s, Edison wanted a more reliable, less expensive alternative to the lead-acid battery. He also wanted an option that could push the mileage range of early electric cars, such as the Detroit Electric, into the triple digits. Edison’s nickel-iron battery never caught on, as internal combustion engines soon took over the automotive competition. As with any good underdog story, the tech might just get a second wind. In the 2025 study, researchers investigated ways to realize the full potential of this long-forgotten battery using modern breakthroughs in nanotechnology.“People often think of modern nanotechnology tools as complicated and high-tech, but our approach is surprisingly simple and straightforward,” said study coauthor Maher El-Kady, PhD, a researcher at UCLA, in a 2026 press statement. “We are just mixing common ingredients, applying gentle heating steps, and using raw materials that are widely available.”Edison wasn’t the only inspiration behind this new battery. Researchers also gleaned ideas from the natural world. Specifically, they looked at how specialized proteins help animals (including humans) build bone by creating clusters of calcium-based compounds. They wanted to determine whether they could adapt such a process to create tiny nickel and iron clusters, which would drastically increase the surface area for chemical reactions to take place, improving both the battery’s charging speed and performance.To achieve this, El-Kady and his team combined proteins derived from cows with graphene oxide, an ultrathin 2D sheet. This combination was then superheated, which caused the proteins to char, stripping away the oxygen and embedding the tiny metal clusters. Most of the clusters were unimaginably small, measuring in at only 5 nanometers wide—or in some cases, just a single atom. In the end, the battery formed was an aerogel, meaning its bulk was 99 percent air by volume.“As we go from larger particles down to these extremely tiny nanoclusters, the surface area gets dramatically higher,” El-Kady said in the press statement. “That’s a huge advantage for batteries. When the particles are that tiny, almost every single atom can participate in the reaction. So, charging and discharging happen way faster, you can store more charge, and the whole battery just works more efficiently.”Edison’s original dream was to create a battery that improved the reliability and efficiency of electric cars. While this 21st-century battery sculpted from modern nanotechnology is both of those things, it can’t outperform the overall storage capacity of lithium-ion battery cells, which are typically used in modern electric cars. But humanity’s energy needs today stretch far beyond just vehicles. These nickel-iron creations could go a long way in helping solar farms store excess energy for nighttime generation or provide backup power for energy-hungry data centers.As more green energy sources emerge, companies are getting serious about investigating alternative ways for storing excess energy. While lithium-ion batteries are ideal for short-term storage (around four hours), the technology suffers from power-fading and safety issues. In extreme cases, lithium-ion batteries may experience thermal runaway, or a chain-heating reaction that causes the battery to smoke, catch fire, or even explode. This is particularly concerning as lithium-ion batteries have become standard across industries, meaning they’re likely embedded in many of the products you use daily.The issue is especially apparent in airline incidents. (There’s a reason airlines require you to place these unassuming troublemakers in your carry-on luggage, after all.) According to a recent report from UL Standards & Engagement—a nonprofit safety organization—thermal runaway incidents on passenger flights increased by 15 percent in 2025, continuing an ongoing upward trend.One of today’s leading alternatives to lithium-ion storage is iron-air batteries, which use the power of “reversible rusting” to store energy, but they typically have slow charge/discharge rates and low energy efficiency. This new nickel-iron breakthrough could be a compelling competitor if manufacturers can produce it at scale. To that end, El-Kady’s team is now focused on improving nanocluster fabrication and experimenting with other materials that are more easily sourced than cow proteins, such as natural polymers.While it’s been more than a year since the paper’s initial publication, members of the research team have yet to publish further studies relating to nickel-iron batteries. However, there seems to be notable interest in zinc batteries, which are notably low-cost. Regardless, it’s still unclear which storage solution will ultimately reign supreme. One day, Edison’s dream battery may finally become a reality—just maybe not in the way he expected.Download Pop Mech Digital IssuesPopular MechanicsPopular MechanicsPopular MechanicsPopular MechanicsDarren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.