When the internal active lithium ions are exhausted, is the only way for lithium batteries to be scrapped? The Peng Huisheng/Gao Yue team from the Department of Polymer Science at Fudan University has provided a new path by innovatively designing lithium carrier molecules. These molecules can be injected into discarded or decaying lithium batteries like drugs, precisely replenishing lost lithium ions and achieving capacity recovery, thereby significantly extending the battery's lifespan. On February 13th Beijing time, the relevant results were published in the international academic journal Nature. According to Gao Yue, a member of the research team and a young researcher in the Department of Polymer Science at Fudan University, after in-depth analysis of the basic principles of batteries and extensive experimental verification, the team proposed a bold idea - designing lithium carrier molecules, injecting them into batteries, and separately controlling lithium ions in batteries. It is reported that lithium carrier molecules need to possess strict and complex physical and chemical properties, and this molecular mechanism has not been reported before, making it impossible to design based on theory and experience. To this end, the team utilized artificial intelligence combined with chemical informatics to digitize the molecular structure and properties, introduced a large number of related properties from organic chemistry, electrochemistry, and materials engineering technologies, constructed a database, and used machine learning for molecular recommendation and prediction. Finally, they successfully obtained lithium carrier molecule - lithium trifluoromethanesulfonate. After synthesizing this molecule, the team verified that it meets various stringent performance requirements, has low cost, is easy to synthesize, and has good compatibility with various battery active materials, electrolytes, etc. Through experiments on real lithium battery devices, it has been proven that the new technology can enable batteries to maintain a healthy state close to their factory state even after tens of thousands of charge and discharge cycles, with a cycle life increased from the current common range of 500 to 2000 cycles to 12000 to 60000 cycles. (New Society)