Watch these recommended TED-Ed Lessons

How batteries work
Batteries are a triumph of science—they allow smartphones and other technologies to exist without anchoring us to an infernal tangle of power cables. Yet even the best batteries will diminish daily, slowly losing capacity until they finally die. Why does this happen, and how do our batteries even store so much charge in the first place? Adam Jacobson gives the basics on batteries.

How do we separate the seemingly inseparable?
Your cell phone is mainly made of plastics and metals. It’s easy to appreciate the process by which those elements add up to something so useful. But there’s another story we don’t hear about -- how did we get our raw ingredients in the first place, from the chaotic tangle of materials that is nature? Iddo Magen uncovers the answer in a group of clever hacks known as separation techniques.


Additional references

Will vinegar remove adhesives from plastic? - HowStuffWorks
Glue and other adhesives cause substances to stick together by forming strong molecular bonds, so to separate items, you need to break the adhesive bonds that hold them together. Find out more methods to remove adhesives and the science behind it.

Next Section »