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Troublesome Algae Sets Battery Record September 11, 2009
Researchers at Uppsala Univ. discovered that the distinctive cellulose nanostructure of the Cladophora algae found throughout the Baltic and elsewhere can serve as an effective coating substrate for use in environmentally friendly batteries.
"These algae has a special cellulose structure characterized by a very large surface area," says Gustav Nyström, a doctoral student in nanotechnology. "By coating this structure with a thin layer of conducting polymer, we've produced a battery that weighs almost nothing and that has set new charge-time and capacity records for polymer-cellulose-based batteries."
Prof. Maria Strømme and Gustav Nyström found algae can serve as an effective coating substrate for use in eco-friendly batteries. | Despite extensive efforts in recent years to develop new cellulose-based coating substrates for battery applications, satisfactory charging performance proved difficult to obtain. However, nobody tried using algal cellulose. Researcher Albert Mihranyan and Maria Strømme at Uppsala's Ångström Laboratory had been investigating pharmaceutical applications of the cellulose from Cladophora algae for a number of years.
This type of cellulose's nanostructure is entirely different from that of terrestrial plants and has been shown to function well as a thickening agent for pharmaceutical preparations and as a binder in foodstuffs. The possibility of energy-storage applications was raised in view of its large surface area.
"We hoped to find some sort of constructive use for the material from algae blooms and have now been shown this to be possible," says Maria Strømme, leader of the research group. "The battery research has a genuinely interdisciplinary character and was initiated in collaboration with chemist Leif Nyholm. Cellulose pharmaceutics experts, battery chemists and nanotechnologists all played essential roles in developing the new material."
The article in Nano Letters introduces an entirely new electrode material for energy storage applications, consisting of a nanostructure of algal cellulose coated with a 50 nm layer of polypyrrole. Batteries based on this material can store up to 600 mA per cm3, with only 6% loss through 100 charging cycles.
"This creates new possibilities for large-scale production of environmentally friendly, cost-effective, lightweight energy storage systems," says Maria Strømme.
"Our success in obtaining a much higher charge capacity than was previously possible with batteries based on advanced polymers is primarily due to the extreme thinness of the polymer layer," says Gustav Nyström
Source: Uppsala Univ.
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