by Lisa Zyga
The future of battery power could be in your juice bottle—or your bladder. Recent breakthroughs in battery technology have put us on a track that sounded ridiculous ten years ago: creating batteries out of organic and biodegradable materials that last longer than metallic batteries and can recharge in no time.
One of the latest innovations is the "sugar battery," the brainchild of St. Louis University's Shelley Minteer. It runs on plant sap, apple juice, and noncarbonated soda and lasts four times as long as a lithium ion battery.
"The batteries that we developed are biodegradable, contain no heavy/precious metals, and come from renewable resources—we can grow both more fuel and more enzymes (catalysts)," Minteer says. She predicts commercial use in three to five years.
There's also NEC's Organic Radical Battery (ORB), which uses an organic-radical polymer (a plastic gel) to create a thin, flexible battery that charges in 30 seconds. Since ORBs use the same structure as lithium ion batteries, existing cell-phone and laptop designs could be easily retrofitted.
Other alternatives under investigation include nano-size viruses, electronreleasing microorganisms, and biodegradable acids (such as methane sulphonic acid, used in Plurion's redox battery). The much-hyped urineactivated battery from the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore actually works with any bio-fluid to run cheap medical diagnostic tests.
Sara Bradford, a battery analyst for Frost & Sullivan, says that lithium ion batteries are still the most powerful option, but biodegradable batteries will likely be a mid- to long-term solution.
"Biodegradable batteries could initially be used as a hybrid power source together with the more traditional batteries," Bradford .........Green Cell eco-friendly battery design – can’t we all just standardize our rechargeable batteries?
By James Allan Brady on Friday, Feb 29th 2008 2 Comments
Its just a concept, but it’s a damned good one offering up a way to significantly decrease the number of batteries thrown away each year. The basic idea is that we get all the device manufacturers to start using one (or two) standardized batteries.
The batteries would have the same voltage, size, and all that other stuff. Then, they’d be sold/exchanged at vending machines.
The upside of this design is that if you couldn’t charge it yourself, you could just exchange it for a charged one, and, all your gadgets would use the same battery, meaning when your phone became more important than your laptop you could swap the two and keep talking. So it would save the environment, up the convenience of the whole mobile power situation, and since the batteries would likely be cycled out every so often, it would likely decrease the number of exploding batteries.
[via gizmodo]
Eco Gadgets: Roll Charger – Chinese health toy-inspired ecofriendly battery charger
Anupam | Apr 30 2009
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Eco Factor: Charger converts mechanical energy into electricity.
In Chinese tradition balls have been used as health and fitness toys for centuries. Rolling two balls in one’s hand stimulates acupuncture points and loosens bones and muscles making you feel relaxed and fresh. Keeping conventions aside, product designer Jiang Qian has developed a concept charger that utilizes the mechanical energy generated in the balls and converts it into electricity.
Roll Charger, as Jiang calls his concept, harnesses energy as the balls are rolled in the palm. The device then converts this rotating motion into electricity, which is then fed into a single AA or AAA battery that fits neatly inside the ball. Since two balls are used to stimulate the acupuncture points, you can charge two batteries at once which can then be used in a remote or other devices powered by them. A LED is integrated into the device, which tells you that the charger is functioning and also alerts the user when the batteries are completely charged.
Harvard scientists believe in the power of the good earth — literally. A team at the Boston-based college have created microbial fuel cell (MFC) batteries that derive energy from naturally occurring bacteria in soil. If the product takes off, the eco-friendly batteries could provide power for some of the 500 million people in sub-Saharan Africa who lack access to electricity.
The MFC batteries, which were recently honored as one of Popular Mechanics‘ 10 Most Brilliant Innovations of 2009, were first tested in Tanzania in 2008. The MFC came in the form of a five-pound bucket, and was made up of a graphite- cloth anode, chicken-wire cathode, mud with manure, a layer of sand which acted as an ion barrier and salt water which acted as an electrolyte. All components were hooked up to an electronic power-management board. The charge coming out of the device is strong enough to charge a cell phone or power LED lights.
This summer, Lebone (the company formed by the Harvard team) instituted a pilot program in Namibia. So far, 100 MFCs have been buried in dirt and can provide power for several months to Namibian families who lack access to electricity.
The system is ideal for developing nations because the MFCs are cheap to produce, easily made and eco-friendly. In fact, it seems a shame that this tech is only being used in Africa right now. We don’t know about you, but we would be thrilled to bury some MFCs in our backyards and use them to power our small electronic devices
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