Was Morpheus right?
Posted on 04/09/2006 9:12:00 PM PDT by nickcarraway
MIT researchers claim dramatic performance increases
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are using viruses to create tiny batteries that can store up to three times as much energy as conventional power systems.
The team, led by MIT professors Angela Belcher, Paula Hammond and Yet-Ming Chiang, genetically modified a virus so that it attracts cobalt oxide and gold, and assembled the metals into ultra-thin wires just six nanometres in diameter.
The viruses can be cloned to assemble lithium batteries ranging in size from a grain of rice to a full-sized product.
"Once we have altered the genes of the virus to grow the electrode material, we can easily clone millions of identical copies of the virus to use in assembling our batteries," said Professor Belcher.
"For the metal oxide we chose cobalt oxide because it has very good specific capacity, which will produce batteries with high energy density.
"This allows it to store two or three times more energy for its size and weight compared to previous battery electrode materials. And adding the gold further increased the wires' energy density."
Furthermore the viruses do not need a special environment and the reaction takes place at room temperature, lowering the production costs of any virus assembly system.
Experts estimate that current battery technology performance improvements will be limited to around eight per cent a year, but this new technology could lead to a dramatic improvement in these figures.
The energy density of current batteries is a major sticking point in the development of long lasting laptops and electric cars.
Cool. Using viruses for power. Sounds really fascinating.
Those-Darn-Viruses-Are-Attracting-All-The-Gold PING
Sounds interesting if you believe it. I suspect it's a hoax and there are actually real small 'hamster like' treadmills where viruses will be forced to work for minimal wages.
Back to reality... interesting...
"Viruses doing jobs Americans won't do."
nutek + WTF?!? ping
Check out Angela Belcher's faculty page:
She's one smart cookie.
http://dmse.mit.edu/faculty/faculty/belcher/
I could've sworn I already pinged an article about this, but lemme go try and figure out if I did.
Some very interesting info I hadn't read before. Thanks for the ping!
Paula T. Hammond's faculty page:
http://web.mit.edu/cheme/people/faculty/hammond.html
Yet-Ming Chiang's Faculty page:
http://dmse.mit.edu/faculty/faculty/ychiang/
Actually, I was trying to think how I could come up with a parody along the lines of millions of them marching in our streets. LOL
MIT researchers build tiny batteries with viruses
MIT Builds Batteries with Viruses
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OPTIMIZING TRANSPORT IN CERAMIC-BASED ELECTROCHEMICAL DEVICES
Yet-Ming Chiang
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
Synopsis of the presentation:
Advanced batteries are complex electrochemical devices in which individual material properties as well as composite microstructures are carefully tuned to optimize the energy storage and delivery characteristics of the whole. An overriding concern is the management of mixed ionic-electronic transport at a variety of length scales, from nanoscale primary crystallites of storage materials, to composite electrode microstructures, to laminates are that fabricated into bulk batteries. This talk will highlight two areas of current research in lithium rechargeable batteries where critical transport problems are being addressed.
In the area of lithium storage electrodes, there is great current interest in so-called "polyanion" structures combining covalently bonded PO43- units with lithium and transition metal-filled octahedra, due to their high cell voltage (low lithium chemical potential), structural and electrochemical stability, low cost, and non-toxicity. As exemplified by ordered olivines such as LiFePO4, their key limitation has been too low an electronic conductivity. We will describe an approach using controlled nonstoichiometry and aliovalent doping that increases the electronic conductivity by 108 over undoped LiFePO4. In laboratory-scale cells, this material has exhibited the highest power densities yet reported for lithium ion batteries. Mixed-conducting olivines and related compounds may also be of interest for other applications such as sensors and fuel cell electrodes. However, many fundamental aspects of these materials are poorly understood, including the electronic and defect structure and conduction mechanisms that lead to poor conductivity to begin with.
At a larger length scale, properties are determined by microstructural design as well as the specific materials. To date, microstructures have not been explicitly designed. Several approaches to optimizing transport in these multiphase composites will be discussed, including graded microstructures, two-dimensional geometric arrangements modeled using a finite-element approach, and ordered microstructures formed by colloidal crystallization.
Key outstanding areas relevant to this presentation:
Electronic structure, defect structure, and ionic/electronic transport properties of transition metal olivines, Nasicons, and other "polyanionic" compounds.
Electrical properties of conductive colloids: What determines the transport properties of a physically percolating network of colloidal particles in which "contact" can have many meanings depending on the nature of interparticle forces?
Designer microstructures for electrochemical systems. Can a single materials system satisfy multiple requirements through the optimization of transport properties? Can computational methods be developed that will self-optimize a microstructure?
Selected publications for background information:
Y.-M. Chiang, H. Wang, Y.-I. Jang, "Electrochemically-Induced Cation Disorder and Phase Transformations in Lithium Intercalation Oxides", Chem. Mater., 13, 53-63, 2001.
P. Limthongkul, H. Wang, and Y.-M. Chiang, "Nanocomposite Li-Ion Battery Anodes Produced by the Partial Reduction of Mixed Oxides", Chem. Mat., 13 [7] 2397-2402 (2001).
P. Limthongkul, Y.-I. Jang, N. J. Dudney, and Y.-M. Chiang, "Electrochemically-Induced Solid-State Amorphization in Lithium-Silicon Alloys and Implications for Lithium Storage", submitted, preprint available from authors.
Y.-N. Xu, W.-Y. Ching, S.-Y. Chung, J.T. Bloking, and Y.-M. Chiang, "Electronic Structure and Electrical Conductivity of Undoped LiFePO4", submitted, preprint available from authors.
Contact information of the speaker:
Yet-Ming Chiang
Kyocera Professor
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Room 13-4086,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Cambridge, MA 02139
all three of them are way smarter than me ;)
Could you add me to your list?
This is incredible.
I'll take a six pack of D cells for my
MagLight with the Ebola virus.
it was the portable blood filter what distracted ye, wusn't it?
sorry ;)
I'm still holding out for the 'Bird Flu' virus. I always want the latest technology ya know.
now, link this ultra-thin wire-growing technique with the nerve-to-chip fusion and eye-implant tek you pung us about last week, add in the emerging triumphs of adult stem-cell research...
future tech is looking hot, to me.
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