Are you frustrated that your smartphone’s battery dies very quickly? Every time you use the internet and play games, your battery does not last for more than a few hours. In the near future, your frustration may come to an end. As Percival Zhang and Zhiguang Zhu, researchers at Virginia Tech, developed a battery that runs on sugar. Sugar batteries were developed earlier as well, but scientists say this one has unmatched energy density which runs longer. Sugar has very high potential and it is considered to be an energy source as dense as gasoline.
“By using the conventional lithium-ion battery, for example, your phone can only last for one day, but in the future it will use sugar as the fuel, then the phone could last 10 days,” said Zhu.
Process:
Sugar undergoes metabolism in the human body and produces energy by using enzymes. Similarly, in a bio-battery, energy is derived from complete oxidation of a maltodextrin unit of sugar through a set of 13 bio-catalyst enzymes. The system uses two active enzymes that liberate two pairs of electrons from the sugar while 11 other enzymes help to reset the reaction inside the bio-battery. 24 electrons are generated in six cycles by completely squeezing a unit of glucose to harness maximum efficiency.
Way Forward:
“The problem is, in terms of putting it into a cell phone or putting it into a mobile device, is you’re going to have CO2 coming out of this device, and water,” said Zhang. Apart from what this, there are challenges more on the engineering side of things, and refilling of sugar into the battery, once exhausted for power.
As of now, the only demerit visible is due to commercialization of sugar batteries is the rise in food prices.
If this sugar battery comes into market in 3 years, as expected by the researchers, it will be cheap, biodegradable and high energy density power source to replace all existing alkaline and metal battery.
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