Development

Batteries Built From Virus

Oh you guys at MIT are so clever! This is definitely a big step for batteries. This is almost as cool as alternative fuels! Apparently this is years in development and they have been able to create “nanowires” from a specific strain that collects exotic materials – cobalt oxide and gold – to form miniature lithium ion batteries.

By manipulating a few genes inside these viruses, the team was able to coax the organisms to grow and self-assemble into a functional electronic device.

The goal of the work, led by MIT Professors Angela Belcher, Paula Hammond and Yet-Ming Chiang, is to create batteries that cram as much electrical energy into as small or lightweight a package as possible. The batteries they hope to build could range from the size of a grain of rice up to the size of existing hearing aid batteries.

Imagine the application and possibilities. Don’t worry, you won’t need a vaccine incase of infection. I do so organic electronics in the future. We will be living machines some day!