What does the new edible battery taste like? Crunchy chicken?

Audit Expert: Wang Jinlu, Power R&D Director, Shenzhen Lingkang Technology Co., Ltd.

If a child is quiet, he must be up to something.

Those who have children at home know that curious human babies are often not satisfied with exploring the world with only their eyes and ears. They are curious whether toy Bucky balls are as sweet as candy beans, whether they can transform after eating Ultraman models... The small toys and small parts placed everywhere in the house may become their "snacks".

If it is a smaller electronic device such as a battery , it may not only get stuck in the trachea and cause coughing and breathing difficulties, but the toxic substances such as mercury and lead contained in it will cause irreversible damage to the child's body...

So, is it possible to turn batteries into non-toxic, harmless and even edible materials?

Recently, scientists from the Italian Institute of Technology have successfully developed the world's first fully edible water-based electrolyte rechargeable battery. The substances that make up the battery are all common food materials, such as riboflavin, quercetin, seaweed, etc. This research result has application value in the fields of health quality and food quality testing, and has laid a solid foundation for the development of edible electronic devices and soft robots. The relevant research results have been published in the recent journal "Advanced Materials".

Source: IT Home

The basic structure of a battery

Batteries can convert their stored energy into usable electrical energy . With the innovative development of materials science, the energy stored in batteries has also expanded from traditional chemical energy to cleaner and more efficient energy, such as water energy (pumped storage), kinetic energy (flywheel energy storage), and air (zinc-air batteries).

Source: pixabay

Generally speaking, a battery consists of six parts: a positive electrode, a negative electrode, an electrolyte, a separator, an insulating layer, and a container. When the battery is charged, the positive and negative electrodes undergo oxidation and reduction reactions, respectively, continuously transmitting and receiving electrons.

The same type of battery also has different packaging structures. Taking the extremely common lithium battery as an example, they are mainly divided into three forms: cylindrical, square, and soft-pack.

Although the specifications of batteries are different, the positive electrode materials of most lithium batteries are lithium cobalt oxide, lithium manganese oxide, lithium iron phosphate and ternary materials (polymers of nickel, cobalt and manganese); the negative electrode materials are mainly natural graphite and artificial graphite.

Among them, the cobalt element contained in lithium cobalt oxide is radioactive and harmful to the human body and the environment. If it is made into a large power battery, the safety of the production process is difficult to ensure. Lithium manganese oxide is not resistant to high temperature environment due to the characteristics of manganese element. Due to the dissolution problem at high working temperature, the life is short, and the structural instability problem will occur during the charging and discharging process. The biggest problem of ternary materials is its safety problem that cannot be ignored.

Edible rechargeable batteries

Unlike ordinary rechargeable batteries, edible rechargeable batteries are all made of edible materials commonly found in daily life.

The research team drew inspiration from the redox reactions that occur in all living things and from the positive and negative reactions that occur when rechargeable batteries work. "The heart of the device is made up of two electrodes. To make it work, we used two materials, two molecules. The anode is riboflavin; the cathode is quercetin, an extract found in capers," explained Mario Chironi, a researcher on the project.

Riboflavin (vitamin B2) is a water-soluble vitamin that is abundant in milk, animal liver, fish, eggs and fortified cereal foods. It can be used as a redox carrier and can transfer hydrogen and electrons in the process of amino acid dehydrogenation and purine oxidation. In the oxidation reaction, riboflavin can donate two electrons, so it is selected as the positive electrode material of edible rechargeable batteries.

Quercetin is a natural pigment found in fruits, vegetables, and grains, and is commonly found in apples, green tea, oranges, pears, and green vegetables. Quercetin is also one of the most abundant antioxidants in the diet, and has the ability to undergo reduction reactions in a variety of cells in animals and humans, so it is selected as the negative electrode material for edible rechargeable batteries.

The researchers used activated carbon and a water-based electrolyte to enhance the conductivity of the rechargeable battery, which allows it to work properly. The battery's separator (the part of each cell that prevents short circuits) is made of seaweed; and two food-grade gold foil contacts are wrapped in beeswax and placed on a cellulose-derived scaffold extracted from beeswax.

Source | Related Papers The operating voltage of this rechargeable battery is below 0.65 volts and will not cause harm to the human body. It can provide 48 microamperes of current for a continuous 12 minutes, or several microamperes of current for more than 1 hour, which is enough to power and charge some small electronic devices in a limited time, such as some low-power LED lights.

The Prospect of Edible Rechargeable Batteries

With the successful development of the world's first edible rechargeable battery, the development of edible electronic devices has also been put on the agenda. In the near future, edible electronic circuits and sensors can be widely used in health monitoring, diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases, and measurement and recording of food storage environmental conditions.

Due to the characteristics of edible electronic devices, they are extremely safe . Considering that children's toys have a high risk of accidental swallowing, edible electronic circuits and sensors can also be used in the design and manufacture of children's toys.

Source: pixabay

In fact, researchers are already developing devices with larger capacity and smaller size, and these developments will also provide strong power for edible electronic circuits, sensors, and even edible soft robots in the future.

In addition, developing clean energy and achieving higher levels of energy conservation and energy storage are also important topics for sustainable development in all countries, and the research and development of edible batteries also has potential value in this regard.

Source: pixabay

Although these edible rechargeable batteries cannot currently power large devices such as electric vehicles, they have demonstrated a safer and more environmentally friendly way to manufacture batteries, which also has extremely high research value and development prospects.