Accidents happen. And sometimes that’s a really good thing. At MIT, researchers accidently stumbled upon a new, more efficient process for smelting metal. The researchers were trying to develop a new kind of high temperature storage battery using a new chemical configuration. The battery didn’t hold a charge, but what it did do was produce metal that was 99.9 percent pure. Traditional smelting methods produce large quantities, but this accidental method produced none. Producing the metal was also cheap, making it a win-win scenario for industry and the environment.