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Cheap, High-Performance Green Battery Runs On Rotten Apples (gizmag.com)

Zothecula writes: Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have repurposed discarded apples to build cheap and high-performance sodium-ion batteries, making a green technology even greener. The advance could find use in grid storage and, after further development, compete with lithium-ion cells to power portable electronics and low-end electric cars.

56 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Funny

    How would this compare to using discarded oranges.

    1. Re:I wonder by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh, there's no comparison!

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    2. Re:I wonder by sconeu · · Score: 1

      But in this case one GOOD apple spoils the rest....

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    3. Re:I wonder by vtcodger · · Score: 1

      Naw, "antique citrus" as the industry prefers to call it, is better suited to solar cells.

      --
      You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
    4. Re:I wonder by taiwanjohn · · Score: 1

      Same here. Is there something special about apples? Would it work with pears or guavas too? TFA mentions "hard carbon" as an enabling factor, but doesn't explain why. A google search turns up a paper on the subject, which says, "Hard carbon is found to be less prone to passivation due to the high electrochemical stability of the ionic liquid." (I'm not quite sure what that means, but it sounds cool.)

      In any case, I'm always happy to see more folks making more advances in battery tech. Elon is blazing a trail with the Giga-Factory, but there's a whole bunch of others lining up in the wings. I think we're going to see a 'boom' in this sector in the next few years.

      --
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    5. Re:I wonder by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      Oh, there's no comparison!

      This is Slashdot. Apples get compared to oranges all the time here. :-P

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    6. Re:I wonder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm not sure in which state Karlsruhe is, but once again: Kudos to our world-class American Engineering!

    7. Re: I wonder by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 3, Funny

      I guess the parent AC learned geography from a world-class American School.

    8. Re:I wonder by NotDrWho · · Score: 1

      Apples are terrible for gaming.

      --
      SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    9. Re:I wonder by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      I insist on gluten-free batteries.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    10. Re: I wonder by Memnos · · Score: 1

      So, umm.. where did you all learn sarcasm?

      --
      I don't trust atoms -- they make up stuff.
    11. Re:I wonder by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I want to know who the hell is gonna eat all these apples? No, really... Other than a fairly short part of the year and at an apple processing company, where are they gonna get enough apples for this?

      As an aside, I had a hell of a time figuring it out based on the title alone. I was really curious as how they figured out when an iPhone was rotten.

      And, for a completely off-topic link:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    12. Re:I wonder by sjames · · Score: 1

      If the internal structure of the carbon matters, then apples and oranges would be quite different. It's probably harder to dehydrate an orange.

    13. Re: I wonder by dunkelfalke · · Score: 1

      Well, Poland has a shitload of rotten apples now that they were hit with the revenge sanctions by Russia last autumn.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    14. Re: I wonder by pollarda · · Score: 1

      This technology despite the claims of the article isn't green at all. If anything it is overripe since I t is a ripe time for technology such as this.

    15. Re: I wonder by sconeu · · Score: 1

      This technology despite the claims of the article isn't green at all

      Maybe they use red apples?

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    16. Re:I wonder by penguinoid · · Score: 1

      I'd like to see how it does on Rotten Tomatoes.

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      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    17. Re: I wonder by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

      World-class Canadian schools, eh?

  2. JUST the low end cars? by gurps_npc · · Score: 1
    Perhaps the high end cars will come with filters that only accept electricity from fresh apples, rejecting any electricity generated from rotten apples.

    After all, it's not like electricity is a commodity that we can send anywhere - just as the water knows it's going to a sink rather than a toilet, the electricity from rotten apples won't go to high end cars.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:JUST the low end cars? by samwichse · · Score: 1

      They'll call that "PREMIUM" apple electricity, and it'll be 30% more at the meter :(

  3. So... by Matheus · · Score: 1

    How do you like them apples, huh??

    1. Re:So... by bobbied · · Score: 1

      Apparently they don't like them apples, which is why they get made into carbon....

      --
      "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  4. Real Life Mr Fusion? (Finally) by dav1dc · · Score: 2

    Real Life Mr Fusion?

    Sorry, but I have to go here: http://i192.photobucket.com/al...

    Finally?! ^_^

    1. Re:Real Life Mr Fusion? (Finally) by cogeek · · Score: 1

      Where we're going we don't need roads!

  5. Dangerous Ideas by JimSadler · · Score: 1

    Many people were on the ethanol bandwagon due to the notion that alcohol could be made and less oil used for fueling cars and machinery. But there was a huge issue not considered. Farmers raising crops to create ethanol caused the price of food to severely increase. After all the land once farmed for food was suddenly farmed for fuel. So the next idea was to use more land to make crops. That also penalized all of us. Less natural land meant more pollution, with bad effects on nature and human health and also involved the use of water which in some areas is in critical shortages. Now suppose we simply use all the apples that don't look nice or have bad spots on them to help make electricity. You can bet that all those apples have been used to feed hogs and other livestock as well. Even orange peels are used to feed cattle. The world is in a terrible bind and the crucial fact beneath it all is that we very much need to reduce the reproductive levels of the population. No matter how far we push science and technology we still have an urgent need to limit births are we simply will all perish. As I type this, billions of gallons of fresh water, contaminated from sugar cane farming is being dumped into Florida's India River Lagoon, which is a salt water lagoon. The effect is so radical that we can not touch the water without risk of disease and the wildlife is being murdered in this huge lagoon. The reason the water is being dumped has to do with the farms being flooded with fresh water and the risk of the dyke around Lake Okeechobee collapsing and killing thousands of people. Yet there is very little choice but to farm that land due to our nation's need for food.

    1. Re:Dangerous Ideas by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 2

      I don't think farmers are going to be growing rotten apples.

    2. Re:Dangerous Ideas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      First read the article. They are using rotten apples. Second, learn a bit about apple farming. There is quite a bit of waste. If the apple is undersized, damaged, etc, it never makes it anywhere other than a rotting pile. Apples, rot quickly if not stored properly and those apples never make it to feeding livestock.

      Not to mention, here in the apple capital of the world, plenty of people have apple trees in their yards they never do anything with and the apples just fall and rot on the ground. The residences (non-farmers) of a single county in Washington state could probably go a long way in supplying this industry with all of the apples they need.

    3. Re:Dangerous Ideas by blindseer · · Score: 1

      "No matter how far we push science and technology we still have an urgent need to limit births are we simply will all perish"

      Or we could use nuclear power and not burn our food for fuel. Not nuclear power like we did fifty years ago but waste annihilating molten salt reactors that consume the waste from those old reactors, produce plenty of energy, and produce valuable radioactive isotopes for medicine and industry.

      Add that plentiful energy from uranium and thorium to a synthetic fuel technology like what the US Navy is working on, turn seawater into jet fuel. That closes the carbon loop, no more carbon footprint, no nuclear waste, plenty of food and energy. Then when the Earth can't take any more human births we will have the energy and technology to colonize Mare and Uranus.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    4. Re:Dangerous Ideas by Hentes · · Score: 1

      Even worse, there are millions in the world who are thirsty while we are pouring alcohol in our cars.

    5. Re:Dangerous Ideas by Jack+Griffin · · Score: 1

      Many people were on the ethanol bandwagon due to the notion that alcohol could be made and less oil used for fueling cars and machinery. But there was a huge issue not considered.

      I think that was considered, and was dealt with via market forces.

      Farmers raising crops to create ethanol caused the price of food to severely increase. After all the land once farmed for food was suddenly farmed for fuel.

      Um, you know you there is no such thing as an ethanol tree? Ethanol is made from feed crops, that either get sold for food/feed or fuel depending on who pays the most.

      So the next idea was to use more land to make crops.

      I don't recall that. I'm sure in some third world countries with no regulations it happened, but in most cases farmers simply trade unprofitable crops for profitable ones.

  6. Pfft by Anubis+IV · · Score: 4, Funny

    Android has had this feature from day one. Glad to see Apple is finally catching up.

    1. Re:Pfft by sconeu · · Score: 2

      I guess they're going to be using Apple /// computers. Those were pretty rotten.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    2. Re:Pfft by maroberts · · Score: 1

      I was expecting to read about how they'd used old Apple phones or Steve Jobs corpse to generate electricity.....

      --

      Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
      Karma: Chameleon

    3. Re:Pfft by jeremyp · · Score: 1

      I was thinking of Newtons.

      --
      All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
  7. Not Cheap. by WorBlux · · Score: 1

    20% of the cost of Lithium ion per unit capacity is still not cheap compared to the cost of electricity from the grid. For widespread home storage you need to bring costs down to less than 5 cents per kW/hr, (1/2 grid costs ... significantly less than grid to combine with rooftop solar) and grid you likely need less than 2 cents per kWhr. (1/10-1/4 retail,) (the difference between the spot costs from base-load or fuel-less sources of (nuclear coal, wind, solar) and that of oil/fast-start natural gas)

    1. Re:Not Cheap. by DamonHD · · Score: 1

      Please don't mix energy with power or with storage capacity, and there is no such unit as kW/hr unless you are manufacturing non-SI generators perhaps.

      Rgds

      Damon

      --
      http://m.earth.org.uk/
    2. Re:Not Cheap. by WorBlux · · Score: 1

      Most residential electric bills in the U.S are charged in terms of kW/hr, the kilowatt hour. For a battery bank you calculate the potential deliverable kW/hr , you roughly take capacity X cycles. The cost is the cost of the battery. Divide total cost by the potential deliverable. To be even more accurate correct for efficiency loses.

    3. Re:Not Cheap. by x0ra · · Score: 1

      it's kWh, not kW/h

    4. Re:Not Cheap. by x0ra · · Score: 1

      no, it's kWh. It's an amount of energy, in J (approximated to a unitless conversion constant). Power is a rate of doing work, measured in W, where W = J / s. kW/s make no physical sense, it would measure the rate of the rate of doing work...

    5. Re:Not Cheap. by hawk · · Score: 1

      Not "kW/hr", but "kW*hr" . . . . more than a little different

      hawk

    6. Re:Not Cheap. by WorBlux · · Score: 1

      Yes, thank you, my mistake.

  8. Re:Hard C by freeze128 · · Score: 1

    In this case, Hard C means Hard Cider.

  9. Re:Hard C by bobbied · · Score: 1

    I want to know how they convert a rotten apple into "hard carbon" beyond just dehydrating them. Do they just make charcoal out of them or something? Which if true, why don't they do the same thing to the solids AFTER they are pressed to get the juice out of them?

    Inquiring minds want to know....

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  10. Re:Finally, by bobbied · · Score: 1

    I always thought they made good movie props... I guess they can squeeze them into other forms now.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  11. Another Science Fair Wonder! by Irate+Engineer · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wake me when you can run a toaster with it.

    It seems that every week we some "green power" technology that produces 0.3 yoctowatts of power, involves the slight jostling of 3 electrons, and claims industrial level of application.

    I call bullshit. Stop stealing ideas from the local school science fair and develop something that will power something useful, and demonstrate it.

    --

    Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!

    Vote for Bernie in 2016!

    1. Re:Another Science Fair Wonder! by dbIII · · Score: 1

      With a farm full of windfalls and rejects definitely, but then again you could also get a pile of methane out of it like sewerage treatment works have been burning to run stuff for decades.

    2. Re:Another Science Fair Wonder! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      You could run a toaster from this type of battery. It's grid scale stuff. Various types of sodium battery, particularly sodium-sulphur, are used for smoothing the output of wind farms or large scale grid backup. Japan has been selling 50MW+ batteries to utilities around the world for a few years now. I believe that Hawaii has some.

      The stated energy density for these things looks reasonable. It doesn't have to be the best, since it's also cheap, recyclable and shows little degradation after many cycles.

      --
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      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  12. Oh my by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    Rotten Apples?
    So, the DOJ won.

  13. It is about time. Late actually by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

    It was predicted by Dr Emitt Brown that by 2014 we will be producing energy from food scraps, 88 Gigawatts to refuel the flux capacitor. No need to steal plutonium from Libyan terrorists.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:It is about time. Late actually by KozmoStevnNaut · · Score: 1

      It's 1.21 jiggawatts. Sheesh.

      --
      Eat the rich.
    2. Re:It is about time. Late actually by jeremyp · · Score: 1

      No it's one point twenty-one jiggawatts. Sheesh. (1.21 is pronounced one point two one)

      --
      All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
  14. It's like they say by penguinoid · · Score: 1

    One bad apple increases the electricity generating capabilities of the whole bunch.

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    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  15. Use this for aluminum by blindseer · · Score: 1

    They want to use this technology to turn rotten apples into carbon anodes for electric batteries? I have what I believe to be a better idea. A process that uses consumable carbon anodes is aluminum refining. Right now they are made from coal, but if made from fruit this closes the carbon cycle on that process and we won't be digging up carbon any more to just dump it in the air.

    There are some crazy people out there that think we shouldn't be using aluminum anyway, but also use wind and solar power. What nut jobs, what do they think that solar panels and windmills are made from? Apples?

    Use the rotten apples to make aluminum. Keep digging up aluminum for windmills and wires. The stuff left over from the aluminum mining can be mined further for uranium and thorium. Put the uranium, thorium, and spent nuclear fuel from all those old nuclear reactors into a waste annihilating molten salt reactors. Those molten salt reactors will destroy the old waste, produce energy, and give us vital radio isotopes for medicine and industry. The energy from the reactors can be used to make more windmills, synthetic fuels, and leave the ethanol for making wine, whiskey, and beer.

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  16. Rotten apples? by tchdab1 · · Score: 1

    I think I might rather have my batteries catch fire.

  17. Re:Rotten apples by penguinoid · · Score: 1

    Those that refuse to be decrypted?

    No, those that have a worm.

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    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  18. yeah, but why not sour grapes? by yodleboy · · Score: 2

    I'd think running on sour grapes would drastically increase supplies and yield more potent batteries.