It's a filament made from tin oxide anode and lithium cobalt oxide cathode suspended in an ionic liquid electrolyte.
It promised to be cheaper, safer and more environmentally friendly than cobalt oxide.
The new material is a significant improvement over lithium cobalt oxide.
But last year, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory figured out how to use cobalt oxide, one of the most abundant industrial catalysts.
At the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory last year researchers found cobalt oxide could help sunlight create fuels, but only as nano-sized crystals.
But since cobalt oxide is so reactive and costly, most experts deem it unsuitable for widespread use in hybrid or electric vehicles.
There were just two problems: it had a lower energy-density than cobalt oxide and suffered from low conductivity, limiting the rate at which energy could be delivered and stored by the battery.
