Despite its bad reputation, body fat serves an essential evolutionary function. It stores energy for moments of shortage and protects it from potential impacts. increase. Otherwise, you’ll have to carry a bag of fat, which is very inefficient in converting it to energy.
On the other hand, the machine must incorporate a dedicated load, increasing the weight and size of the structure, reaching one-fifth of the space.but innovative technology project You can change it significantly.
At the University of Michigan, they have developed a new generation of “biomoprick” batteries that mimic animal body fat. Based on zinc instead of lithium, this technology is more efficient as it serves his dual function as a protective structure or shell and as an energy store.
In experiments they conducted, the battery with the new structure produced up to 72 times more energy than a conventional lithium battery. Technically speaking, the new battery works by conducting hydroxide ions from zinc electrodes through a network of aramid nanofibers and a water-based polymer gel used to make Kevlar. In this case, the gel is responsible for conducting ions from one electrode to another.
Cheap and eco-friendly…but with some drawbacks
One of the advantages of this innovative technology is that the materials used are cheap, plentiful and, in most cases, non-toxic. In fact, it is possible to recycle Kevlar protective vests to make these new devices. Also, neither the gel nor the fibers are flammable, which reduces the fire hazard of lithium-based models. Zinc batteries begin to degrade after 100 charge cycles, one fifth of the cycles offered by current lithium batteries.
In any case, if this hurdle is overcome, the high density and low price of the new batteries will make them ideal candidates for robots that require greater autonomy, as in the case of warehouse-working drones and vehicles. increase. In addition, we can expect exciting applications in the field of tiny, flexible robots, which will require more imaginative energy solutions than today’s bulky batteries. Who knows if one day even robots will have to go on a diet.
If you’d like to see these machines in action, employing the shapes of scorpions and other invertebrates in your experiments, see below. this video.
sauce: University of Michigan
