Unlike a traditional battery, the Seawater battery produces charge through the flow of the sodium ions found in seawater and can additionally be used for water purification and desalination. The battery uses seawater as the cathode and leaves the anode empty — two standard battery parts that typically represent more than half the material cost of a battery.

As a result, the battery is more cost, weight, and size effective than a lithium battery. Although there are other batteries that use seawater, those batteries still use a traditional cathode and use seawater as the electrolyte and are still comparatively high in cost and negative environmental impacts.

“In order to (research) more deeply, we need more people and labs to collaborate with. We want other scientists to participate in this research on seawater batteries,” Go said.

Go is a first-year and Park is a third-year; both study battery sciences and technology at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in Korea, and work under Professor Youngsik Kim. UNIST is currently a global partner of the Sutardja Center: the Center provides its global partners with a variety of resources and immersion into the Silicon Valley culture for foreign faculty, staff and students on exchange.