Imagine having fungal batteries to feed, not recharge when they are running low. Before you turn over the page, this is not science fiction. It is really happening! The EMPA Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science are perfecting their design. Although it is only powerful enough for agricultural sensors right now.
Screen Printing Fungal Batteries You Feed, Not Recharge
EMPA have achieved the impossibly bizarre, by screen printing their fungal batteries. Recycling the material is a snip. When the battery has completed its work, it digests itself from the inside out.
Although, this is just a microcosm of the amazing world of fungi. We encounter these ‘creatures’ half-way from animals and plants, as mushrooms, molds, pathogens, and ‘super-heroes producing medicines.
But now EMPA have found another use for fungal batteries to feed, not recharge when they are running low. They have just completed a three-year research project to develop a functioning fungal battery.
Seeing as fungi are semi-living-creatures, it makes sense to deploy these batteries in agriculture. Their energy may be minuscule compared to lithium-ion batteries. But it is sufficient to power a temperature sensor for several days. And that’s a handy thing to have for agricultural research.
When a Screen Printed Fungus Becomes a Battery
Were we to be were perfectly honest, we might admit the cell is not actually a battery, but a so-called microbial fuel cell as all living things are, when they convert nutrients into energy. In this case though, the fungus screen prints as a neat geometrical form.
“For the first time, we have combined two types of fungi to create a functioning fuel cell,” says EMPA researcher Carolina Reyes. “The metabolisms of the two species of fungi complement each other.
“On the anode side there is a yeast fungus whose metabolism releases electrons. Whereas the cathode is colonized by a white rot fungus, which produces a special enzyme. This allows the electrons to be captured and conducted out of the cell” to the sensor.
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Preview Image: Screen Printed Fungal Batteries
