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Scientists Powering Batteries with Soda, Tree Sap
BobB writes "St. Louis University researchers have concocted batteries fueled by almost any kind of sugar, from tree sap to flat soda, and that could be used to power everything from computers to cell phones. Their thinking: If sugar can jack up the human body, why not electronics?"
It's hygroscopic. Of course, if the batteries can deal with that, that's cool.
Sugar is sticky and it can jack up electronics. I don't think that's a good thing...
Funnypics
I recall some previous stories about better batteries than this that could be about the same amount of eco-friendliness. What's up with all the batteries lately? Automobiles could probably be the most worthwhile reason to invent all of these batteries, but that means that it's incredibly likely that the portable power market will become the next oil market.
If people are bothering to create batteries run off food, why would they pick one of the least energy dense macronutrients?
At 9 kilocalories per gram to carbs' 4, fats kick the crap out of carbohydrates with regard to energy density. Strikes me as odd.
The idea is neat and has been around for some time, but the article fails to answer some pretty basic questions. The most important question is if they can actually get these batteries to pump out enough juice to power anything of importance. They said that they got the battery to run a calculator, but calculators are EXTREMELY low powered devices. The fact that you can run a calculator with a tiny primitive solar strip gives you an idea of how little power some calculators actually need. When they get one of these batteries (even a large one) powering a MP3 player, I will be impressed. Until then, I am deeply skeptical that there is anything to this.
The other issue here is size. Even if they can pump out enough juice, they need the batteries to be small to be useful in most modern applications. The batteries for most electronic devices need to very small. There might be a niche market for this sort of thing, but I am very skeptical it is going to make any sort of splash in the consumer electronics field.
How uneducated do you have to be to use the term "jack up" when describing power systems to a technically-literate audience?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Sugar is sticky and it can jack up electronics. I don't think that's a good thing...
Unless your blood is the nearest source of sugar.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Well, we getting so close to have real nanobots in our bodies.
One of the obstacles is how to power them.
The answer - make them absorb blood shugar!
The possibilities are endless.
On a lot less futuristic note, think of a pacemaker that you don't have to
recharge every so often.
Offhand, sugars are water soluable, relatively small molecules and probably easy to harness for their energy (the fuel mixture will readily mix to keep the remaining sugar moledules exposed to whatever catalyst and other molecules it is reacting with). Because they're simple molecules, there probably is only one major reaction required to split the sugars and obtain energy.
Fats are not water soluable, more complex chemically and thicker in general. I would think coming up with a stable reaction for the entire amount of fat in the tank would be difficult since they are not water soluable (you would need to mix them in a lipophilic solution) and they are thicker. I would imagine they would be more diffult to handle, especially if the idea is to make they reusable.
Then again, it been awhile since I've done any chemisty. Sounds like an interesting concept.
Way to go SLU (graduated from med school there)!
So can we build a battery out of fat and give it caffeine to stimulate energy output? That would make for one disgusting battery. But we'd have a virtually unlimited natural resource!
Developers: We can use your help.
Yes but you are missing the upside of this one. Unlike corn, sugar comes from a variety of sources, many of which are cheaply producable or directly obtainable from nature. For instance, the battery has been shown to use tree sap. You might say, well there's not enough tree sap, yes. But there's an abundance of sugar. Corn is one thing, not only must you grow the corn but you must break it down in a specific process for it to become fuel. This, essentially, means that you don't need to do that process. This is the ability to directly use some food products as fuel without additional conversion. Given how cheap food production has become, I'd say that's not bad.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Using a power source like this would be a great boon to any medical devices that currently run off batteries - i.e. pacemakers, infusion pumps,cochlear implants etc. Hell, you could use it to power via induction external gadgets - your cellphone, watch, computer wireless modem, heck - internal computer with computer terminal glasses, etc.
Build in a failsafe so that it doesn't reduce your blood sugar to below a critical level, so that you don't go into a hypoglycemic shock, and you're good to go. This would be really useful to diabetics to maintain their constant blood sugar level at a more physiologic normal value. "Crap - my blood glucose is 250. Anyone need their phone charged?"
..........FULL STOP.