Virus Battery

Car Battery

The environmentally polite thing to do in the future might be to give your battery the flu.

That's right: Batteries may soon run on a virus.

Researchers at MIT developed the battery. It's so cool, that the president of MIT showed off the battery to President Obama.

It's powered by a common, harmless virus called a bacteriophage. The battery is non-toxic, isn't produced with harmful solvents, and has the same energy capacity as state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries being tested for plug-in hybrid cars.

MIT says manufacturing the battery would be an environmentally benign process.

Lead researcher Angela Belcher got the idea after she engineered viruses to coat themselves with metal, like tiny suits of armor, and form microscopic wires.

After that, her team developed viruses that first coat themselves with iron phosphate, then grab hold of atomic-sized carbon filaments. Combined they create an extremely conductive material that transfers energy as fast as any battery on the market.

The batteries can't be re-charged as many times as conventional batteries. Yet. But still, it's a promising advance in clean battery technology.

And arguably, it's the first virus to be formally introduced to a President.

Script by Gail Davis

Discovery Links

To learn more about today’s topic, please explore the links below:

• MIT virus battery could power cars
• New virus-built battery could power cars, electronic devices