Remember those annoying little packing peanuts you found strewn about the house after the big move? Well, they're far more powerful than you think.

Most aren't earth-friendly, because they're made from materials that are slow to biodegrade. Packing peanuts are often discarded, wasting away in dumps, says Tech Times. A mere 10 percent are recycled per year, a number that isn't good news for the environment.

Now, Purdue University researchers think they stumbled on a new, greener life for packing peanuts. The team discovered a of starch or polystyrene peanuts can provide a powerful electrical charge when placed in the negative end of a lithium-ion battery, Science News reported.

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But how did this innovative idea take form? With moving, of course.

"We were getting a lot of packing peanuts whilesetting up our new lab," said postdoctoral research associate Vinodkumar Etacheri of Purdue University in a press release. "Professor Vilas Pol suggested a pathway to do something useful with these peanuts."

The process of transforming the peanuts begins in a furnace, heating them between 932 and 1,652 degrees Fahrenheit in a specific atmosphere, says Pol. The sheets derived from the peanuts were "thin and porous," which allows for easier contact with liquid electrolytes used to create electrical currents.

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Results yielded a battery with a longer-lasting charge, said Science News. The new batteries were able to hold nearly 13 percent more charge than graphite-based batteries sold commercially.

Etacheri noted, "The process is inexpensive, environmentally benign and potentially practical for large-scale manufacturing."

The research team plans to continue work on improving the electrode's performance, and a U.S. patent application for this powerful new technology was filed in 2014 by Purdue's Office of Technology Commercialization.

If these new, cheaper batteries become widely available, consumers may save a hefty amount of money while significantly cutting down the peanuts' impact on the environment.

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