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Viruses Boost Performance of Lithium-Air Battery Used In Electric Cars
rtoz writes "MIT researchers have found that adding genetically modified viruses to the production of nanowires will boost the performance of lithium-air battery used in electric cars. The key to their work was to increase the surface area of the wire, thus increasing the area where electrochemical activity takes place during charging or discharging of the battery (abstract). The increase in surface area produced by their method can provide a big advantage in lithium-air batteries' rate of charging and discharging. Unlike conventional fabrication methods, which involve energy-intensive high temperatures and hazardous chemicals, this process can be carried out at room temperature using a water-based process."
That would be sick!
Just Don't Let Those Fuckers Out Of The Petri Dish, eh.
Heh, big thing when it's a virus. I'm hilarious. OK but lithium-air batteries that don't explode in the rain would be quite something. Not only would they make electric cars more viable, but it might even make things like electric planes much more practical and long-ranged. Big ifs, though. It's hard to beat kerosene and turbines for raw power, efficiency and range.
Mostly random stuff.
Fred: Dude, where's your car?
Sam: I don't know - I parked it hear like 2 hours ago.
Fred: Did you patch against the latest virus they found?
Sam: What?
Fred: Yeah, it caused the batteries to eat all the metal parts.
Sam: Crap.
Fred: Now if only you could download a copy of the car...
......it was a virus in the car CPU :-)
Would you like to cook some quality methamphetamine at my sekrit underground lab?
Researchers at the University of Maryland have been using the tobacco mosaic virus for similar purposes: http://phys.org/news/2010-12-virally-nano-electrodes-boost-energy-capacity.html
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
http://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=mit+viruses+batteries
Seriously.
Thank you.
Pure lithium metal reacts with water. The lithium salts used in batteries, not so much.
Also, while this material was successfully tested through 50 cycles of charging and discharging, for practical use a battery must be capable of withstanding thousands of these cycles.
Show me a rechargeable battery I can buy now that will withstand thousands of cycles. I've got a box full of dead rechargeables that maybe lasted 100 cycles, many probably less than 50. Battery manufacturers have been promising charging cycles since the dawn of the rechargeable battery and have failing to deliver for an equally long time.
For practical use, even 50 cycles can be enough if it means 3 times more storage density.
Granted, Lithium ion batteries have seen a number of enhancements over the years, but new super-ultra battery tech is starting to look like fusion - always around the corner. A battery that is all the way around a major step forward from what we have now could change the world overnight. But every time I read about the next big thing in batteries, I just sigh... I realize that continued articles means continued research and development is going - but I am ready for my super batteries now. I know I can't hurry science along, but I am eagerly and impatiently waiting for the day I wake up to the commercial realization of the mythical wonder-battery.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Unlike conventional fabrication methods, which involve energy-intensive high temperatures and hazardous chemicals, this process can be carried out at room temperature using a water-based process."
Pray tell, why these hazardous biota are better than hazardous chemicals. What can go wrong?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
MIT's PR operation is becoming embarrassing. At least once every two months, there's some announcement about "nano" something that's going to change the world. Then we never hear about it again. You look at the details, and it turns out somebody did something at lab scale which might possibly someday be useful, if there weren't other ways to do the same thing already.
The BSOD is pretty efficient in energy consumption.
The viruses were used to make manganese oxide (MnO) nanowires, which acted as the cathode material. The catalysts, electrolyte, and lithium comes in later.
This is to make materials for the positive electrode side. All the water would need to be removed before actually putting the battery together. In a lithium-air battery the negative electrode is lithium metal and water would be a problem
Tesla has enough PR problems with the fire rumors. Now they have to explain virus-infected batteries to the public.
Table-ized A.I.
They can't infect lithium. What's going on here?
Not only do they burst in to flame but their batteries are infected with viruses!
(This message brought to you by a consortium of oil companies)
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
My phone has one. Hey 1970 dude, if you can wait until 2010 you will be able to get the same thing in the exciting world of tomorrow!
Product development takes time. It's the engineering and even marketing that takes time a decade or more after the science is done.
And I can transmute base metal to Gold in a atomic reactor.
The question is will this be more than a limited laboratory trick and done on anything largescale an cheaper than the current nanotube producing methods which are also being improved.