Sci/Tech Sugar battery offers hope of green-powered gadgets within three years

[KaerfNomekop]

Scientists in the US have developed a sugar-powered "biobattery" that they say stores 10 times more energy than the equivalent-size lithium-ion batteries found in smartphones.

According to the team at Virginia Tech university, the results of their work could be in use within three years – and recharging could be a matter simply of adding some more sugar.

"Sugar is a perfect energy-storage compound in nature," said Y H Percival Zhang, professor of biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech. "So it's only logical that we try to harness this natural power in an environmentally friendly way to produce a battery."

Their “biobattery”, which releases energy from sugar instead of chemicals such as lithium, used in batteries found in today's electronic gadgets, could replace conventional disposable or rechargeable batteries – and is cheaper, refillable, biodegradable and more environmentally friendly.

The researchers reported their work in the latest issue of Nature Communications.

The new battery technology produces significantly more energy from the sugar fuel than ever before. It can also store “one order of magnitude” - 10 times - more energy than the lithium-ion batteries commonly used in portable electronics and electric cars, claim the researchers. That could greatly extend the battery life of smartphones, tablets, and electric cars.

Read more.

 

[The Helper]

Cool

 

[KMilz]

Yeah, sugar is a no-brainer as an energy source. Cool that they finally figured out a way to implement it in a technological way.

 

[The Helper]

Sadly though, even though we constantly hear about these developments they seem to disappear and never come to fruition. Potentially being bought out and squashed.

 

[Accname]

I guess its more likely that some of these news articles are faked / not quite truthful.

 

[s3rius]

I read that, especially in the battery development, most inventions don't get into R&D because it's just not worth it. Experience has shown that people prefer to buy cheap short-living batteries rather than expensive long-living ones. These new technologies (not necessarily this one, but new tech in general) would simply be too expensive for most consumer market areas.

 

[KMilz]

Experience has shown that people prefer to buy cheap short-living batteries rather than expensive long-living ones.

To be fair, I make sure to at least get name brand batteries over the dollar packs - the batteries that are four for a dollar won't even let me take a single picture with my digital camera when they're brand new without it turning off.

 

[s3rius]

I'm usually buying the cheapest I can find. But I only need them for clocks and previously for my mp3 player. I've found that the cheap ones give me better livetime per dollar than the good ones.