Ever seen a micro battery? I haven’t caz its invisible to the naked eye. Well, team from MIT is currently working on such kind of a micro battery that uses genetically modified viruses and use them as a replacement for ultra-thin wires. Basically, the genetically modified viruses “start making protein coats that collect molecules of cobalt oxide to form ultra-thin wires — together, the anode”.
Can’t really understand all this MIT-gibberish? Well here’s what it does in simple words: The MIT team magically force the viruses to start storing energy for all your future micro-gadgets. The viruses even though dislike all constructive stuff like this and love to spread bad diseases instead, are forced to work in these micro batteries for ever and ever. How sad.
What you see in the image is the device used to test those micro batteries, the batteries themselves cant be seen by us mortal human beings.
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Posted on August 21, 2008 | Posted in energy
So we’ve all been hearing about how the efficiency of solar cells is being increased after every couple of months, well how about solar cells that could generate energy even at night? And even cool your PC components in the process of generating energy for your devices? That’s the kinda solar cells the Idaho National Laboratory’s physicist Steven Novack and his team has been working on lately.
These flexible solar cells consist of massive arrays of nanoantennas, which can collect energy from light and other sources. These nanoantennas absorb a targeted wavelength range of mid-infrared rays. Since heat is mostly emitted in form of IR, so these solar cells can actually cool your future gadgets by absorbing those IR rays that your overheating gadgets release, and create useful energy during the process.
Another good thing is that our beloved planet Earth is actually emitting these IR rays all the the time, because of the sunlight it absorbs during day time. So if these solar panels actually make it to the mainstream market it’d be a massive upgrade to our current solars cells that operate during day time only. Hit the source link for more info.
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Posted on August 12, 2008 | Posted in energy