2025-08-07

[public] 618K views, 32.6K likes, dislikes audio only

Veritasium

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For decades, a high-energy rechargeable battery seemed impossible - until we managed to tame one of the most volatile metals.

If you’re looking for a molecular modelling kit, try Snatoms, a kit I invented where the atoms snap together magnetically - https://ve42.co/SnatomsV

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0:00 What’s inside a battery?

4:11 How does a battery work?

7:15 How did we increase battery power?

11:13 The first rechargeable lithium battery

13:29 The Tiny Needles That Kill Batteries

16:06 Goodenough? We can do better

20:07 The birth of the lithium-ion battery

27:10 Why do batteries explode?

29:31 Blowing up a battery

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A massive thank you to Dr Billy Wu, Dr Sam Cooper, Dr Derek Sui, Professor Magda Titirici, Dr Jingyu Feng, Dr Monica Marinescu, Li Ren Thow, Genlin Liu and Sam Riley; and to Professor Guillermo Rein, Dr Harry Mitchell, Hanna Berry, and Dr Nick Kalogeropoulos at Imperial College London for their invaluable contributions to this video. And a big thank you to Conrad Duncan for all his help in pulling everything together.

We’re incredibly grateful to Kurt Kelty and the team at General Motors for their time and expertise.

Thanks also go to Dr Yuzhang Li and Prof Jay Morton Turner for all their help on the project.

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References: https://ve42.co/RefsBatteries

Image References: https://ve42.co/ImgRefsBatt

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Special thanks to our Patreon supporters:

Adam Foreman, Albert Wenger, Alex Porter, Alexander Tamas, Anton Ragin, armedtoe, Balkrishna Heroor, Bertrand Serlet, Blake Byers, Bruce, Dave Kircher, David Johnston, David Tseng, Evgeny Skvortsov, Garrett Mueller, Gnare, gpoly, Ibby Hadeed, JT, Jeromy Johnson, Jon Jamison, Juan Benet, Keith England, KeyWestr, Kyi, Lee Redden, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Matthias Wrobel, Meekay, meg noah, Michael Bush, Michael Krugman, Orlando Bassotto, Paul Peijzel, Richard Sundvall, Robert Oliveira, Sam Lutfi, Tj Steyn, Ubiquity Ventures, Walter Flinn, wolfee

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Writers: Emilia Gyles, Casper Mebius, Gregor Čavlović & Derek Muller

Producer & Director: Emilia Gyles

Editor: Trenton Oliver

Camera Operators: Tas Underwood, Emilia Gyles, Gregor Čavlović & Derek Muller

Animators: Andrew Neet, Emma Wright, Fabio Albertelli, Mike Radjabov & Rokas Viksraitis

Illustrators: Jakub Misiek, Maria Gusakovich, Isaac McRee, Nataly Zhuk & Kaitlyn Chille

Assistant Editor: James Stuart

Researchers: HyoJeong Choi, Aakash Singh Bagga & Gabe Strong

Thumbnail Designers: Ren Hurley, Ben Powell & Abdallah Rabah

Production Team: Rob Beasley Spence & Josh Pitt

Executive Producers: Derek Muller & Casper Mebius

Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images, Pond5

Music from Epidemic Sound