This appears to
be important. I do not see how that it
is reversible, but the simplicity easily overcomes all that. Thus we have an inexpensive supply of
electrons. Of course if we cannot reverse
the process, we must end up with a usable depleted sugar.
We still do not
know enough here but the all-important energy density makes it work.
I look forward
to further developments and hopefully it does not become another black hole of
silence.
New
Breakthrough: Sugar-Powered Battery - It's Cheaper, Refillable,
Biodegradable And Easier To Replace
A battery that runs on sugar - a development that
could replace conventional batteries - has been developed by Virginia Tech researchers.
In America alone, billions of toxic batteries are
thrown away every year, posing a threat to both the environment and human
health. The problem is well-known in many other countries, too.
The new battery is cheaper, refillable, and
biodegradable and in as soon as three years, it could be running some of
the cell phones, tablets, video games, and the myriad other electronic gadgets
that require power in our energy-hungry world.
"Sugar is a perfect energy storage compound in nature," said Y.H. Percival Zhang, an associate professor of biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Engineering.
|
"So it's only logical that we try to harness
this natural power in an environmentally friendly way to produce a
battery."
In contrary to other sugar batteries, this one has
an energy density an order of magnitude higher than others, allowing
it to run longer before needing to be refueled, Zhang said.
Zhang and his team constructed a non-natural
synthetic enzymatic pathway that strip all charge potentials from the sugar
to generate electricity in an enzymatic fuel cell. Then, low-cost
biocatalyst enzymes are used as catalyst instead of costly platinum,
which is typically used in conventional batteries.
|
"We are releasing all electron charges stored
in the sugar solution slowly step-by-step by using an enzyme cascade,"
Zhang said.
Different from hydrogen fuel cells and direct
methanol fuel cells, the fuel sugar solution is neither explosive nor
flammable and has a higher energy storage density. The enzymes and fuels
used to build the device are biodegradable.
The battery is also refillable and sugar can be
added to it much like filling a printer cartridge with ink.
Journal Reference:
Zhiguang Zhu, Tsz Kin Tam, Fangfang Sun, Chun You,
Y.H. Percival Zhang. "A high-energy-density sugar biobattery based on a
synthetic enzymatic pathway" - Nature
Communications, 2014
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