Imagine having a truly compostable tree pulp battery, you could throw on the compost heap in the garden. Well, Canada’s Columbia University has been beavering away at the concept, and has come up with an idea that works!
They built their degradable battery from tree pulp, that they could presumably throw on a compost heap too. Whether or not that’s the case, the tree pulp battery apparently does degrade in soil within 60 days.
Green Tree Pulp Battery = No Waste!
CIO Connect confirms the compostable battery degrades fully within 60 days, and leaves no toxic waste footprint behind. Although we did wonder how it shapes up against lithium-ion, and there we have to mark it down …
We suppose it was too much to expect that the compostable tree pulp battery would power a phone, or an electric car. But what it does do in style, apparently, is drive lower-grade electronic devices.
The CIO Connect article is thin on the detail, however this is what were able to glean elsewhere …
That frustratingly short snippet follows with a brief written explanation. This confirms that the compostable tree pulp battery is made from tree pulp and hydrogel.
Now hydrogels are a three-dimensional, water-swollen network of cross-linked polymers, that can hold up to 99% of their weight in water. These behave like soft, flexible solids, imitating the texture of living tissue.
Our Thoughts on This Compostable Storage
Could this be the ground-breaking intervention, for which we have been waiting? It certainly sounds like a zero-waste, green solution for low-energy portable electronic devices.
It could also become a great alternative-in-the-making for lithium-ion batteries, whose waste survives for centuries. We’ll follow this intriguing theme with interest, and post further developments on this blog.
More Information
Lignin Battery Recharging Over 8,000 Times
Could Batteries Come From Mighty Trees?
