Viruses build next-gen batteries

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 3 Apr 2009 at 08:32

Researchers have developed a virus-powered battery that could pave the way to more efficient and powerful electronic devices.

MIT scientists changed two genes in the M13 virus which led it to build a shell made out of a compound called iron phosphate, and then attach itself to a carbon nanotube forming a powerful, but tiny electrode.

Such an electrode could be scaled up to run MP3 players, mobile phones or even laptops, according to the researchers behind the project.

"It has some of the same capacity and energy power performance as the best commercially available state-of-the-art batteries," says Angela Belcher, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology materials scientist.

"We could run an iPod on it for about three times as long as current iPod batteries. If we really scale it, it would be used in a car," she adds, though she cautions such an application is still some way off.

The technology is harmless to humans and also inherently green because it involves nurturing a live virus: "We are having organisms make the materials for us. We are confined to temperatures and solvents that organisms can live in. It's a clean technology. We can't do anything that kills our organisms."

"Once you have the right genetic sequence and have the right proteins then you just put them in solution with water and ions and they template the battery in the same way an abalone templates a shell. They build little shells around themselves."

The team is already working on a second-generation battery using materials with higher voltage and electrical capacity, such as manganese phosphate and nickel phosphate, says Belcher.