Usually, when you think about consumer-grade batteries either a copper top or fuzzy, pink bunny come to mind, but there may soon be other major competitors coming to the shelves. While looking into fuel cells I stumbled across a category of batteries known as bio batteries. They run on all natural ingredients and their popularity seems to picking up quite a bit of speed in the science communities. 

Sony is one company who seems to be taking a lead in this sector. Sony is actually one of the world’s largest makers of batteries and have now developed one which runs on sugar (carbohydrates)! This is pretty interesting, and so far the test batteries have shown the ability to produce 50 milliwatts (the world’s current record for level of power production for passive-type bio batteries). This seems impressive because it is a record-setter, but what about powering products consumers buy on the shelves? Combining four power units together is sufficient enough to operate most MP3 players and cell phones. 

Another interesting bio battery appeals to both energy conservators and bar-folk alike. That’s correct, a battery which runs on gin and vodka. Scientists from the St. Louis University in Missouri have created a battery that uses enzymes as a catalyst to break down ethanol fuel. So far it seems enzyme-based batteries like these have the more serious potential to be cheaper than their direct competitors because the other fuel cells rely on expensive platinum or ruthenium catalysts. Though, because enzyme-using batteries are sensitive to slight changes in pH and temperature they still need to overcome the hurdle of quickly degrading and become inactive. 

Both of these technologies seemed to stand out to me while researching bio batteries, but there are others out there. Who knows who will end up taking the lead in the mass-production market. Whoever it is, the company will surly be aiming to create an effective energy source which will be suitable for practical applications such as the cell phone and the like. 

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copper top 
pink bunny 
Sony 
vodka 
gin

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This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Conservation, Home Electronics, Mobile Electronics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.