Engineered viruses assemble batteries

Filed in archive Energy on April 21, 2006

I've run several posts lately about nanotech advances that are having a big impact on battery design. Now researchers at MIT have devised a way to use genetically engineered viruses as scaffolding for nanowires to make ultra-thin, transparent battery electrodes that store nearly three times as much energy as those in today's lithium-ion batteries.

"Most of it was done through genetic manipulation -- giving an organism that wouldn't normally make battery electrodes the information to make a battery electrode, and to assemble it into a device," said angela Belcher of the MIT team in an interview with Technology Review. "My dream is to have a DNA sequence that codes for the synthesis of materials, and then out of a beaker to pull out a device. And I think this is a big step along that path."

"You could do this at the industrial level really quickly," says Brent Iverson, professor of organic chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin. "I can't imagine a way to template or scaffold nanoparticles any cheaper."

"If you can make batteries that truly are effective this way, it's just mind-boggling what the applications could be," Iverson says.

Applications could include high-energy batteries laminated invisibly to flat screens in cell phones and laptops or conformed to fit hearing aids. The same assembly technique could also lead to more effective catalysts and solar panels.