Antimony fails to work inside a magnesium battery, but it's just what tin needs to store energy

With more capacity and fewer safety issues than their lithium counterparts, magnesium batteries are potentially a promising energy storage option, but the electrodes are difficult to produce and quickly fail. Scientists want something better. Inspired by a two-metal electrode, made of tin and antimony, a team at DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) delved into the atomic workings of this alloy. They saw the metals separate into antimony- and tin-rich regions. The tin regions worked