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Really new batteries

Your Blogscientist has been falling down on the job. A few days ago I saw plenty of headlines about new nanoscale batteries. Everything’s nano-whatnot these days. I figured I’d read about it later. No doubt somebody had an extra 5% improved energy yield or something.

Turns out, no, this is really new. A team at MIT has genetically engineered bacteriophages — a kind of virus that normally attacks bacteria — to assemble batteries. Put them in a soup with the right ingredients and they pull out what they need to assemble anodes, cathodes, and, in short, batteries. (Abstract of Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences article.)

the three authors, Yet-Ming Chiang, Angela Belcher and Paula Hammond, in the lab
From left, MIT professors Yet-Ming Chiang, Angela Belcher and Paula Hammond. The three have authored a paper detailing their virus-based method of creating and installing microbatteries by stamping them onto a variety of surfaces. Photo / Donna Coveney

It’s lab bench work at this point, but as Belcher says,

“[R]ight now the thing is trying to make the best material possible, and if we get a really great material, then we have to think about how do you scale it.”

Scaling up means laptop batteries, car batteries, and — shoot for the stars, any damn fool can hit the ground — electromagnetic rail gun spaceship launching batteries.

Technorati Tags: batteries, nanoscale, virus, Belcher, Hammond, Chiang, MIT