Published in Chemistry World, 2 Apr 2009
Scientists in the US have created a rechargeable ‘lithium ion’ battery with the help of a genetically programmed virus that acts as a scaffold for highly conductive electrodes. The battery is as powerful as other leading lithium-ion batteries, but is cheaper and far less toxic to produce.
Lithium-ion batteries are among the most popular rechargeable batteries and are used in a variety of consumer electronics from laptops to mobile phones. They work through the flow of lithium ions between two electrodes – an anode and a cathode – in an electrolyte. When the batteries are powering a circuit, positive lithium ions generate a current by flowing from within the anode, through the electrolyte and into the cathode. When the batteries are being charged, however, the polarity of the electrodes is switched and the lithium ions are forced to flow back to where they came. […]
The rest of this article is available here.