alt Hacker NewsFrom the article:
> When exposed to a trigger -- such as a small amount of heat or a catalyst -- the molecule snaps back into its original form, releasing the stored energy as heat.
From the paper abstract, the catalyst is HCl. I don't have access to the full paper, so I don't know how they separate the HCl from the MOST to neutralize it to be rechargeable again.
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kadoban • yesterday at 9:11 PM
"A small amount of heat or a catalyst". Well, that sounds unstable. So any random contamination and you have a runaway reaction.
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As a sibling comment says, in the paper the catalyst is acid and I can't find the release using heat in the paper. Is that an hallucination in the press article?
(Note: At high enough temperature the thermal energy will be high enough to go over the energy wall from the high energy isometric to the normal one. So it's plausible. But with high enough temperatures a lot of nasty things can happen, like total decomposition or just burning. So it may not be a good strategy to make a rechargable baterry.)