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?"

Comments

Stupid.

[Spazntwich]

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.

Re:So sugar gets more expensive.

[danpsmith]

Just like corn. There are some serious downsides to finding ways to use human food as fuel.

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.