A UCLA-co-led laboratory prototype inspired by Thomas Edison’s nickel-iron battery work reportedly recharged in seconds and exceeded 12,000 charge-discharge cycles. It is not a ready-to-use electric-vehicle battery: the researchers made a protein-templated iron-and-nickel supercapacitor-battery hybrid, and the available results do not show seconds-long charging of a vehicle-sized pack.
What Edison’s battery has to do with the new prototype
Edison worked on nickel-iron battery chemistry in the early 1900s. A 1901 report in Nature described his secondary battery, while a U.S. patent record identifies Edison as the inventor of a reversible galvanic battery. The U.S. Department of Energy also notes that Edison believed electric vehicles were superior technology and worked to improve their batteries.
The modern device is inspired by that history, not a replica of Edison’s cell. It uses a newly engineered nanostructure and combines battery-like energy storage with supercapacitor-like power delivery. Calling it Edison’s “lost EV battery” captures the historical connection, but can give the wrong impression if it suggests that the old design has simply returned or that a new EV battery is ready for drivers.
How the researchers built the hybrid
In a February 10, 2026 announcement, UCLA described an international collaboration co-led by the university. The team used proteins derived as byproducts of beef production as templates to form iron and nickel clusters smaller than 5 nanometers. They combined those clusters with a porous carbon structure derived from graphene oxide, described by UCLA as an aerogel framework.
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The study, “Protein-Templated Fe and Ni Subnanoclusters for Advanced Energy Storage and Electrocatalysis”, characterizes the result as a supercapacitor-battery hybrid. Its architecture matters: this is a research device built to combine attributes of two kinds of energy storage, not evidence of a conventional, complete EV battery pack.
What “recharges in seconds” means—and what it does not
UCLA says the prototype recharged in seconds rather than hours. The announcement and the study abstract do not specify the charge-time protocol behind that result. They also do not establish that an electric car’s full battery pack could recharge in seconds. A small laboratory device and a vehicle pack are different scales and applications; the reported charge-time claim cannot be carried over to a car without pack-level results.
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The study abstract reports three performance figures for the hybrid:
| Measure | Reported result | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Specific energy | 47 Wh/kg (study authors, 2025) | Energy stored per unit of mass. |
| Specific power | 18 kW/kg (study authors, 2025) | Power delivered per unit of mass. |
| Cycle life | More than 12,000 cycles (study authors, 2025) | Reported repeated draining and recharging; not a demonstrated vehicle lifetime. |
UCLA’s 2026 announcement compares the cycle count with more than 30 years of daily recharges. That is an illustration based on the reported number of cycles, not proof of a 30-year service life in a vehicle or other field setting.
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Could it become an EV battery?
The results make the material relevant to energy-storage research, but they do not show that it is ready for an electric car. The published figures describe the research hybrid; the sources do not provide vehicle-pack charging results, a charging protocol detailed enough to interpret the seconds claim, or evidence of scaled manufacturing and commercial availability.
UCLA points to renewable-energy storage, including solar-farm storage, as a possible application. That is a potential use, not a report of a deployed grid installation. Until pack-level performance, manufacturing at scale, and real-world operation are established, this prototype is not a consumer alternative to lithium-ion EV batteries.
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Why the material design is notable
Using proteins as templates offers a way to organize iron and nickel at very small scales within a carbon framework. UCLA co-author Maher El-Kady, an assistant researcher in the university’s chemistry and biochemistry department, described the approach this way: “People often think of modern nanotechnology tools as complicated and high-tech, but our approach is surprisingly simple and straightforward.”
Co-corresponding author Richard Kaner, a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry and of materials science and engineering at UCLA, said: “We were inspired by the way nature deposits these types of materials.” These comments explain the researchers’ design approach; they do not establish that the material is inexpensive or straightforward to manufacture commercially.
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