Friday, May 1, 2009

The Virus Battery

I missed this story awhile back but it may turn out to be an important one. Scientists at MIT have developed a battery where the anodes and cathodes are built by specially engineered viruses. There is currently more research being done on the technology to develop higher voltages.

It may be early to say that this could cause a battery revolution, but the potential may be there. The production of these batteries uses no toxic or harmful materials. The process takes place at room temperature. And no, we can't be infected by the viruses. Did I mention they are cheaper to produce??

The only down side is that the number of times they can be charged is less than the lithium batteries. But to compensate for that they have longer charges. We'll have to wait and see but it is ideas like these that we need to cure our increasing energy needs.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/virus-battery-0402.html