Potato-Powered Batteries Debut 284
MojoKid writes "Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has just introduced what it's calling 'solid organic electric battery based upon treated potatoes.' In short, it's a potato-powered battery, and it's as real as you're hoping it is. The simple, sustainable, robust device can potentially provide an immediate inexpensive solution to electricity needs in parts of the world lacking electrical infrastructure. Researchers at the Hebrew University discovered that the enhanced salt bridge capability of treated potato tubers can generate electricity through means readily available in developing nations."
Puff piece (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing new about using vegetables as electrolytes, and all of the electricity is derived from the non-sustainable zinc and copper, not the boiled spud.
Re:Puff piece (Score:5, Informative)
Cost analyses showed that the treated potato battery generates energy, which is five to 50 folds cheaper than commercially available 1.5 Volt D cells and Energizer E91 cells, respectively. The clean light powered by this green battery is also at least 6 times more economical than kerosene lamps often used in the developing world.
Re:food (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Really? (Score:2, Informative)
You didn't either.
What they did was manipulate the salt bridge in the potato in a way that increased the output by ten fold. They found this was as simple to do as boiling the potato. Basically, they took something already known, and known to be limited, and raised those limits until it became somewhat practical for use in some situations.
In case you do not know what a salt bridge is, it's a conduit that allows ions to pass from one side of the battery's reaction to the other so the electrons do not create an imbalance and halt the flow when it gets saturated. In a traditional potato, this is limited, in a boiled potato, it is ten times (or up to) more efficient/effective as the article claims.
Re:Puff piece (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Power from Zinc/Copper?? (Score:1, Informative)
No. In both their battery and the lemon batteries, only the zinc is consumed. See the "Reactions" section in the article you linked.
Lalande and Daniell Could Do It Much Better (Score:5, Informative)
2Zn + O2 -> 2ZnO (zinc air)
Zn + H2O -> ZnO + H2 (zinc water)
The potato is decorative, and simply acts as the electrolyte, the copper is also decorative and simply acts as substrate for the air or water reaction (it could be iron, nickel or even a graphite rod). Their are using copper, as far as I understand, because it is cheap. The copper won't be consumed. The potato won't be consumed, unless it rots. It will eventually be filled with zinc oxide, which will "clog" the electrolyte. So basically, you'll save the copper until it corrodes (likely never because the zinc protecting it from corrosion), and replace the zinc constantly. My guess is that you'll eventually have to replace the potato, but not as often as the zinc. Part of the problem with this system is that the copper is not oxidized - instead of copper wire, you need copper rust. What you really want in such a system is this:
Zn + CuO -> ZnO + Cu
That's what the Lalande cell does. It was used in the late 1880's and 90's to power stuff like telegraphs. Instead of a potato, they used an alkaline electrolyte, like potassium hydroxide. This is way, way better at conducting electricity than a potato. Before the Lalande cell, we had the Daniell cell. The Daniell cell was based on a similar construction, but it used sulphuric acid instead of potassium hydroxide. Sulfuric acid dissolves both copper and zinc oxides, which lead to problems because some of the copper sulfate would make it across to the zinc. This would lead to the corrosion of the zinc, and the copper plating of the zinc, stopping further reaction. To resolve this, a porous bot or salt bridge had to be used to stop the copper from getting the the zinc. Unfortunately, although zinc-copper is a cheap chemistry with high energy density, it is tough to recharge successfully. This is because when the reaction is reversed, and zinc oxide is changed to metallic zinc, the zinc plate will change shape. This will cause the shorting of the battery, and its destruction. Zinc-copper is not really used all that much these days. Zinc manganese appears to have replaced it because it is cheap and has higher energy. It still has the same recharging problems, and if we could solve em', lithium would be out of business.
This is a press release (Score:2, Informative)
You really think someone submitted this news to Slashdot and then got accepted?
Do your research. This is a press-release from Businesswire, a news agency.
It's like this: You want people to pay attention to your "news", you pay a PR agency u$s 5000 to u$s 10000 and they send your "news" to their buddies at Reuters, Asocciated Press or Businesswire.
All newspapers, TVs (And reporters like kdawson) are subscribed to this news "collectors" and they pick up the news they want. It has been like this for years.
This is a paid advertisement. Open your eyes.
Re:food, and off topic (Score:2, Informative)
Fine, but do you numbers include the necessary infrastructure costs (plus maintenance) of electrical distribution? Moreover, what of the skills required to safely and temporarily store radio active waste, which we still cannot deal with effectively in the so-called developed world? Local or distributed sources of power might appear less efficient from a global perspective, however, too often that view is skewed towards not including real, long term costs. Plus Uranium will become increasingly expensive were it used everywhere, as you suggest.
Please recalculate with more care. Also throw in the talent to build and maintain these power stations and clean up afterwards when they are obsolete.
eat the potatoe, make battery out of dung (Score:1, Informative)
India with Sanjeev Bhaskar: Indian Inventors & Cow Dung [youtube.com] its cheaper than wasting perfectly edible food/forage to make batteries
Re:Puff piece (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bulllllllllshit! (Score:3, Informative)
You sounded pretty intelligent as long as you talked about science. Perhaps if you had done your research you would have known that most of Gaza's electricity is supplied by Israel, and most electricity outages in Gaza have been caused by Kassam rockets hitting electricity infrastructure in Israeli territory. (And of course, Israeli Electric Company technicians are sent to fix the problem, risking their lives to provide power to the very people attacking them!)
And you don't sound intelligent at all.
Points in order. . .
1. The Israeli air force bombed Gaza's primary power plant in 2006.
2. Power generation today rests on diesel availability. This is one of the many things Israel will not allow into Gaza.
3. Delivery infrastructure in Gaza is damaged (due to IDF bombing, not home-made rockets) and repair was slowed to a crawl because building materials are blocked from entering Gaza.
4. Your claim that black outs being due to Kassam rockets damaging Israeli infrastructure is patently wrong. Daily rolling blackouts are planned because there is not enough power to supply demand. And anyway, if the damage were in Israel, why would Israeli repair crews need to enter Gaza? Your logic is flawed.
5. Rationing power from Israel is a means of very deliberate population control.
Of course, the Israeli psychopaths who support this system claim that it is Gaza's fault. This is typical behavior. Blame the victim.
Anybody interested in further details may refer to this document [gisha.org] detailing the power distribution system over the last 10 years in Gaza.
-FL