电池寿命短是智能手机和笔记本电脑的头号难题。在无线社会里，设备线充对我们来说似乎越来越成为一件烦人的事情。虽然研究人员正在寻找无线充电的办法，但如果有更好的电池，那么我们的忧虑也可以减轻了。
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.
现在，一项新的技术的可以做到这点了。来自加利福尼亚大学欧文分校的研究人员发明了一种纳米线电池，该电池可以充电几十万次而不用更换，这是电池发展的一大飞跃。
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.
纳米线具有蓄电和传输方面的若干理想特性。它们具有高导电性，并且比人类的头发细几千倍，这意味着它们可以为电子转移提供一个巨大的表面区域。不幸的是，纳米线通常是非常脆弱的，并且会在反复充放电后性能会有所降低。
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.
将这项研究结果发表在《美国化学学会·能源通讯》上的研究人员给金质纳米线包了一层壳，并用树脂玻璃之类的凝胶薄层进行包裹。这种结合使纳米线的所有性能保持不变，并使其耐折损。
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.
这项研究的带头人妙莱泰已经给电池进行了200000次充放电的操作，之后发现纳米线并没有破损，电池容量也没有损失。
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.
"妙莱泰不停在测试，她给金质纳米线包了一层壳并开始给纳米线充放电，" 加利福尼亚大学欧文分校化学系主任、资深作家雷金纳德在一份声明中说。"她发现，只要用这种凝胶，她就可以充放电成百上千次而不失去任何容量。"
"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."
"这太疯狂了，"他补充说道，"因为最多经过5000、6000或7000个充电周期，这些物质一般都会失去作用。"
"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."
研究人员认为，有机玻璃等凝胶电解质和氧化镁的结合物为纳米线提供了可以防止其开裂的灵活性和结构，从而延长其使用寿命。
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.
"被涂层的电极维持自身形态的能力要强得多，因此是更可靠的选项。" 妙莱泰说。"这项研究证明，以纳米线为主的电池的电极使用寿命长，我们可以把此类电池变成现实。"
"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."