Viruses and technology seldom mix well -- just think of all the downtime that nasty computer viruses have caused office workers around the world. But in a twist, researchers have harnessed the self-renewing and self-assembling properties of a particularly nasty plant virus to build faster, smaller and more efficient batteries.
The work is based on the rigid, rod-shaped tobacco mosaic virus, which wreaks havoc on tobacco, tomato, pepper and other plants. Researchers in a lab at the University of Maryland are taking the traits that make the virus a menace in nature, and using them to build lithium ion batteries of the future.
"They can modify the TMV [tobacco mosaic virus] rods to bind perpendicularly to the metallic surface of a battery electrode and arrange the rods in intricate and orderly patterns on the electrode. Then, they coat the rods with a conductive thin film that acts as a current collector and finally the battery's active material that participates in the electrochemical reactions," the university explains in a news release.
The result is a battery with increased electrode surface area and capacity to store energy. According to the university, the new batteries show up to a tenfold increase in energy capacity over a standard lithium ion battery. And in case you're worried, the resulting batteries are unable to transmit the virus, the researchers say.
© 2011 msnbc.com
