Lithium-ion batteries have come a long way, but in many ways they haven’t come far enough. They charge faster than ever before, but there’s still room for improvement. The materials they’re made of, particularly cobalt and nickel, are pricey and problematic. Researchers have been scrambling to find alternative materials, from manganese to sodium. Now they might have another: TAQ. Unlike nearly every other lithium-ion battery chemistry, TAQ is an organic compound — not the free-range hippie type,...