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Earth Science Technology

Cheap, High-Performance Green Battery Runs On Rotten Apples (gizmag.com) 89

Posted by yaelk from the a-bad-apple dept.
Zothecula writes: Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have repurposed discarded apples to build cheap and high-performance sodium-ion batteries, making a green technology even greener. The advance could find use in grid storage and, after further development, compete with lithium-ion cells to power portable electronics and low-end electric cars.
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Cheap, High-Performance Green Battery Runs On Rotten Apples More

Cheap, High-Performance Green Battery Runs On Rotten Apples

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  • I wonder (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 ) on Tuesday February 23, 2016 @03:32PM (#51569891)
    How would this compare to using discarded oranges.
  • Perhaps the high end cars will come with filters that only accept electricity from fresh apples, rejecting any electricity generated from rotten apples.

    After all, it's not like electricity is a commodity that we can send anywhere - just as the water knows it's going to a sink rather than a toilet, the electricity from rotten apples won't go to high end cars.

  • How do you like them apples, huh??

  • Real Life Mr Fusion? (Finally) (Score:3)

    by dav1dc ( 2662425 ) on Tuesday February 23, 2016 @03:38PM (#51569939)

    Real Life Mr Fusion?

    Sorry, but I have to go here: http://i192.photobucket.com/al... [photobucket.com]

    Finally?! ^_^

  • Many people were on the ethanol bandwagon due to the notion that alcohol could be made and less oil used for fueling cars and machinery. But there was a huge issue not considered. Farmers raising crops to create ethanol caused the price of food to severely increase. After all the land once farmed for food was suddenly farmed for fuel. So the next idea was to use more land to make crops. That also penalized all of us. Less natural land meant more pollution, with bad effects on nature and human hea

    • I don't think farmers are going to be growing rotten apples.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      First read the article. They are using rotten apples. Second, learn a bit about apple farming. There is quite a bit of waste. If the apple is undersized, damaged, etc, it never makes it anywhere other than a rotting pile. Apples, rot quickly if not stored properly and those apples never make it to feeding livestock.

      Not to mention, here in the apple capital of the world, plenty of people have apple trees in their yards they never do anything with and the apples just fall and rot on the ground. The resi

    • "No matter how far we push science and technology we still have an urgent need to limit births are we simply will all perish"

      Or we could use nuclear power and not burn our food for fuel. Not nuclear power like we did fifty years ago but waste annihilating molten salt reactors that consume the waste from those old reactors, produce plenty of energy, and produce valuable radioactive isotopes for medicine and industry.

      Add that plentiful energy from uranium and thorium to a synthetic fuel technology like what

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hentes ( 2461350 )

      Even worse, there are millions in the world who are thirsty while we are pouring alcohol in our cars.

    • Many people were on the ethanol bandwagon due to the notion that alcohol could be made and less oil used for fueling cars and machinery. But there was a huge issue not considered.

      I think that was considered, and was dealt with via market forces.

      Farmers raising crops to create ethanol caused the price of food to severely increase. After all the land once farmed for food was suddenly farmed for fuel.

      Um, you know you there is no such thing as an ethanol tree? Ethanol is made from feed crops, that either get sold for food/feed or fuel depending on who pays the most.

      So the next idea was to use more land to make crops.

      I don't recall that. I'm sure in some third world countries with no regulations it happened, but in most cases farmers simply trade unprofitable crops for profitable ones.

  • Pfft (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Tuesday February 23, 2016 @03:46PM (#51569999)

    Android has had this feature from day one. Glad to see Apple is finally catching up.

  • 20% of the cost of Lithium ion per unit capacity is still not cheap compared to the cost of electricity from the grid. For widespread home storage you need to bring costs down to less than 5 cents per kW/hr, (1/2 grid costs ... significantly less than grid to combine with rooftop solar) and grid you likely need less than 2 cents per kWhr. (1/10-1/4 retail,) (the difference between the spot costs from base-load or fuel-less sources of (nuclear coal, wind, solar) and that of oil/fast-start natural gas)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DamonHD ( 794830 )

      Please don't mix energy with power or with storage capacity, and there is no such unit as kW/hr unless you are manufacturing non-SI generators perhaps.

      Rgds

      Damon

      • Most residential electric bills in the U.S are charged in terms of kW/hr, the kilowatt hour. For a battery bank you calculate the potential deliverable kW/hr , you roughly take capacity X cycles. The cost is the cost of the battery. Divide total cost by the potential deliverable. To be even more accurate correct for efficiency loses.

  • Another Science Fair Wonder! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Irate Engineer ( 2814313 ) on Tuesday February 23, 2016 @04:12PM (#51570179)

    Wake me when you can run a toaster with it.

    It seems that every week we some "green power" technology that produces 0.3 yoctowatts of power, involves the slight jostling of 3 electrons, and claims industrial level of application.

    I call bullshit. Stop stealing ideas from the local school science fair and develop something that will power something useful, and demonstrate it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbIII ( 701233 )
      With a farm full of windfalls and rejects definitely, but then again you could also get a pile of methane out of it like sewerage treatment works have been burning to run stuff for decades.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      You could run a toaster from this type of battery. It's grid scale stuff. Various types of sodium battery, particularly sodium-sulphur, are used for smoothing the output of wind farms or large scale grid backup. Japan has been selling 50MW+ batteries to utilities around the world for a few years now. I believe that Hawaii has some.

      The stated energy density for these things looks reasonable. It doesn't have to be the best, since it's also cheap, recyclable and shows little degradation after many cycles.

  • Rotten Apples?
    So, the DOJ won.

  • It was predicted by Dr Emitt Brown that by 2014 we will be producing energy from food scraps, 88 Gigawatts to refuel the flux capacitor. No need to steal plutonium from Libyan terrorists.

  • One bad apple increases the electricity generating capabilities of the whole bunch.

  • They want to use this technology to turn rotten apples into carbon anodes for electric batteries? I have what I believe to be a better idea. A process that uses consumable carbon anodes is aluminum refining. Right now they are made from coal, but if made from fruit this closes the carbon cycle on that process and we won't be digging up carbon any more to just dump it in the air.

    There are some crazy people out there that think we shouldn't be using aluminum anyway, but also use wind and solar power. What

  • I think I might rather have my batteries catch fire.

  • yeah, but why not sour grapes? (Score:3)

    by yodleboy ( 982200 ) on Wednesday February 24, 2016 @09:33AM (#51574587)
    I'd think running on sour grapes would drastically increase supplies and yield more potent batteries.

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