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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?"
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.
No, autos are the least interesting reason to invent new batteries. Automobiles need energy dense, quick to charge batteries far more then they need eco-friendly batteries. Don't get me wrong, environmentally friendly batteries would be nice, but that means starting over at square one with a new technology. It is far more likely that we will be able to squeeze enough out of an old technology by modifying it in some way to achieve what we need. The eco-friendly stuff will come after the roads are clogged with less-then-friendly battery powered cars.
I, for one, am very sick of this retarded meme overlord.
I'm right here, you insensitive clod!
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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)!
The bad thing about using cellulosic materials directly is that they tend to resist being broken down into sugar while they are in their raw/natural state. They need to be pretreated, which usually involves some combination of grinding, heating, soaking, 'steam explosion' (quick pressure release), to obtain a reasonable yield of sugar. If you don't pretreat the feedstock, you won't get nearly as much sugar, and you battery will be bigger because you're only using X% of the initial material. And if you use pretreated material in your battery, why not just convert the cellulose to sugar outside the battery, wher you can better control the reaction conditions and yields? Plus, the enzymes needed to convert the cellulose to sugar and the sugar to electricity may need different reaction conditions, as enzymes are often picky about their pH, concentrations, temperatures, co-reactants, etc.
Judging from TFA, I don't think charge times will be a huge issue. Just empty the battery's resevoir, refill it with fresh sugary goodnes and enzymes, then drive away. The spent fuel is biodegradeable so you can dump it in the sewer. Refueling would probably end up being infrastructurally similar to current oil-based fuel distribution in order to ensure reliable deliverey and the proper sugar/enzyme mix.
Even if the enzyme reaction takes a little time to get going and build up a proper charge, having multiple batteries running in an asynchronous parallel setup instead of serially should keep people moving. When battery A dies, the car switches to battery B and the "low fuel" light comes on. If you refuel battery A before battery B dies, you never have to worry about waiting for the chemical reaction to ramp up. And that doesn't even account for the possibility of "jump-start" catalysts that could accelerate the chemical reaction through the ramp-up phase before returning to it's normal electron producing rate.
However, nothing significant was mentioned in TFA about energy density, so that's still a concern.
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.
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