Phones. They are the backbone of our society in current life, about 92% of Americans own cell phones. We all love our phones; however, one main issue that occurs with every phone is, that over time we get a lot less usage from our battery life. One second you have 90% of your battery life and you turn around the next minute just to find your phone at 60%. There’s actually some sense of science behind why this happens.

Batteries are made with Lithium, which are what make them rechargeable. The Lithium causes a reaction with Lithium ions, this then creates a solution of Lithium electrolytes. This is stored between two electrodes, which creates a flow of the electrons. The size of the battery is what allows a battery to last longer, because that means the more lithium ions a battery can store, thus allowing more or less travel of the electrodes between the two points, basically the difference between charging your phone and using the battery.

Now back to why battery life depletes over time. The reason battery life depletes over time is because the composition of the batteries electrodes has to break down, which allows metal ions to flow freely to the opposite electrode. When the metal ions reach the opposite end of the battery there they react with the Lithium ions, within this reaction Lithium ions are locked down. So with this, the Lithium ions tend to build up within your phone battery over time. And as time passes this continues to build up, so this is the reason your battery is at 100% then you turn around for about a minute and it is at 84%, because 16% of your battery is that region of packed Lithium ions.

A funny thing about this is that your can find articles all over the internet about fixing this issue; however, that’s not possible. The reason it’s not possible to reverse the effects is because this isn’t a reaction at equilibrium. If this were reversible, at equilibrium, then there would never be a need to buy batteries in our lives because the reaction would just reset itself. And that obviously doesn’t happen. The only real solution to this issue is to buy a new battery just like we do with the T.V remote; your phone is no different.

So the next time you wonder why your phone dies so quickly, you can remember this article and buy yourself a new battery. Or not, if your okay with having a phone that dies within an hour of your day, feel free to carry around a dead battery.