Carnegie Mellon University’s Venkat Viswanathan and a team of researchers have reduced the problem of sudden death in lithium air batteries through the addition of water, increasing their energy storage capacity by five times. “We could not get all the energy out of these batteries because of sudden death,” said Viswanathan, an assistant professor of Mechanical Engineering. “That was the ugly aspect of this battery.” Sudden death causes lithium air batteries to die prematurely. The batteries require lithium, oxygen, and an electron to move inside the battery to reach the active site where the reaction produces energy.