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Sony Runs Walkman Off Sugar-Based Bio Battery
StonyandCher writes "Sony has created a battery that produces electricity by breaking down sugar. The bio cell, which measures 39 millimeters cubed, delivers 50mW — a world record for such a cell, according to the company. 'In the bio cell sugar-digesting enzymes at the anode extract electrons and hydrogen ions from the glucose. The hydrogen ions pass through a membrane separator to the cathode where they absorb oxygen from the air to produce water as a byproduct. The electrons flow around the circuit outside the device producing the electricity needed to power it.'"
The bio cell, which measures 39 millimeters cubed, delivers 50mW -- a world record for such a cell, according to the company.
The real question is, how much force does it create when it explodes?
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
I can't wait for the Dell-Biobattery recall: My laptop popped, then began to digest itself on the desk.
I can convert glucose to energy very efficiently, just give me a crank.
\u262D = \u5350
Sweet!
After months an all-sugar diet, your Walkman becomes obese and sluggish, then you need to give it regular insulin injections, etc.
Kevin Smith on Prince
sugar doesn't have to come from grains, that's the stupid way. All plant cellulose is a bunch of sugars hooked end to end.
Someone who follows this field please reply- how are they doing with using these things to run implantable medical devices? Are they on the market, in human testing, in animal testing, in design, still just a glint in a venture capitalist's eye?
I know they're planning to have all sorts of implantable blood-powered sensors that send radio signals out to monitors. So, for one example, a diabetic can have a continuous blood glucose meter implanted in their wrist, which is powered by something like this, and sends wireless signals to a wrist-watch that gives continuous readings of blood glucose, bypassing all the finger-pricking blood tests. And the watch could then store that data and send it to the computer, where they can track it, graph it, correlate it with diet and exercise, recognize trends in the disease, etc. I'm sure there are endless cool potential medical uses. But I've been hearing about this for many years now, and while I'm sure I could Google up how it's going with a few hours of reading, would some knowledgeable Slashdot reader like to just cut to the chase and tell us where things stand?
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
What happened for example in Mexico with tortilla prices http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6319093.stm and the threat to tequila production as well(!!), I wonder about the wisdom of converting our food supply to slake our thirst for energy. I would far better like to see alternative energy products like hydrogen fuel cells and the like rather than turning over arable land to energy production.
These batteries may have the potential to be good, but the impact on people, especially in the third world where food prices are a large obstacle has the potential to be nasty.
Please put your "That's Sweet" jokes under this thread, and be sure to include your home address and the specific way you would like me to kill you.
Sony refers to the sugar powered battery as a "Teenager".
Note: Purchasing teenagers is illegal in every country except Saudia Arabia and Nigeria.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
If food prices are driven up, many poor countries are in fact going to benefit. With their very cheap labor, they could, at least in theory, produce cheap food and even export it. However, food subsidies in the developed world essentially kills their markets. Not only are they not able to export, they end up importing cheaper, subsidized food.
The Raven
This battery can only output 50mW of power. A laptop could easily be consuming 50W when it's rather busy so to satisfy those requirements you would need a thousand of these cells. The article says that the cells are 39mm squared so that would take up a volume of over two cubic feet (somebody check my math on this). Similarly, the size you would need to power a car is also far too large.
Besides that though, the article makes no mention of how much power the battery actually holds, i.e. who cares if it can put out 50mW if it can only do it for two minutes.
That's Sweet!
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Remember: Hydrogen fuel cells are just batteries in effect. They aren't a method for producing power. You have to have hydrogen gas to make them work and that doesn't occur in quantities such that we can just gather it. It must be separated from another compound, water for example. Ok, but that requires energy. Where does that energy come from?
Supposing that the biogenesis theory of fossil fuel production is correct (the classic theory, that says it comes from living things over long periods and as such is not renewable) we are going to run out of it at some point. Unless you think we should all go live in the wilderness without power (in which case I say you first) we need to find alternate energy sources. Biofuels may well be a good one.
Hydrogen isn't a solution by itself. We may start using it as a more efficient way to store and transport power, but to get it we need to get energy from somewhere.
Unless we are going to take the Luddite answer of saying we need to stop using technology that requires power (which will lead to millions, perhaps billions of deaths as we cannot sustain the current population on preindustrial means) then we have to look for alternate power sources. We can't stick our heads in the sand and just whine about problems. Any energy source will come with problems, that's just life. The problems have to be weighed against the benefits.
Also please remember: Biofuels are in their infancy. Maybe we should keep investing and working, see if we can't figure out ways to make it more efficient. Plants are pretty efficient little solar cells, when you get down to it, we just need to work on getting ones that we can then efficiently turn in to other forms of energy.