Batteries Can Now Be Organic Fruit-Based

The modern era is dominated by the Batteries. Cell phone without the battery backup is useless. Any person who is looking for the new and advanced cell phone is questioning the battery backup. The battery powered gadgets are boon to the society but to dispose-off the waste batteries also create lot of problems. This e-waste is dangerous for the environment.

The solution is there. Now the Colombia University had developed the batteries from the fruit waste, which are organic and environment friendly.

The Plasma Physics Research Group of the National University of Colombia (UNAL) in Manizales has been working for the last 6 months on the prototype of an organic battery that is as effective as the ones available in the market. Since they are made with plant waste materials, such as banana peels, sugarcane bagasse or avocado seeds, they don’t present the contaminating effects of conventional batteries.

Professor Favio Nicolas Rosero Rodriguez, from the Department of Physics & Chemistry of the Faculty of Natural Sciences & the leading researcher in renewable energy and organic batteries at the UNAL Manizales, said that people throw their old batteries in the trash end and they end up in large wastelands mixed with other waste. There, the rains and liquids secreted by the decomposition of other elements wear the batteries out until the cadmium or mercury within them, which are their most polluting chemical components, leak out and disperse until they contaminate rivers and water sources. According to data from the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, a single battery can contaminate up to 100,000 liters of water.

Researchers used 3 typical products of the Coffee Area in the research, bananas, avocados, and sugarcane, in different scientific processes to find out, among other things, their components. These organic components were analyzed in their crystalline, microscopic, and molecular levels. This led them to discover that, after some processes, the banana peel, the avocado seed, and sugarcane bagasse were suitable as a raw material for the research.

In the next phase of the investigation, researchers will create three battery prototypes with each of the products. This will allow them to identify the efficiency of each of these materials, based on the performance of the batteries available in the market.

Daniel Pineda, of the Plasma Physics Research Group and the person in charge of operating the equipment that will determine the efficiency of the organic batteries, said, “We expect the durability of the new battery to be as good as that of any other normal lithium battery. We expect this research demonstrates that it is possible to solve numerous problems by exploring renewable organic materials. ”

This research will easily discard the organic batteries after their useful life ends, as they will decompose and even work as a fertilizer. Some components of the banana peel, the bagasse of the sugar cane and the avocado peel would be an ideal raw material to replace the contaminating elements of the cell phone batteries.

For 6 months, the Plasma Physics Research Group of the National University of Colombia (UNAL) Manizales Headquarters has been working on the prototype of an organic cell as effective as those available in the market but without the contaminating effects of conventional ones.

According to figures from the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, because it contains components such as cadmium or mercury, a single battery can contaminate up to 100,000 liters of water.

Likewise, a study of the Waste Research Program (PIRS) of the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering of the UNAL Bogotá Headquarters, showed that while in 2002 19.3 kg of these contaminants arrived at the landfills, in 2009 the figure was 210 , 7 kg.

As explained by Professor Favio Nicolás Rosero Rodríguez, from the Department of Physics and Chemistry of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences and research leader in renewable energy and organic batteries at the UNAL Manizales Headquarters, when the batteries are thrown in the trash end in large dumps mixed with other waste. There the residues are left in the open, and when it rains, the liquids secreted by the decomposition of other elements wear down the battery casing until the mercury, which is the most polluting chemical component, disperses until it reaches rivers and streams.

In that sense, the initiative of Professor Rosero is to minimize the problem of pollution; It also intends that this is a way to take advantage of the natural resources of the Coffee Region.

For the investigation, three typical products of the Coffee Axis were taken into account: banana, avocado and sugarcane, which underwent different scientific processes (characterization) to find, among others, their components. In this first phase the part of the product that best works to develop an organic cell was identified.

Likewise, three kinds of information were analyzed: structural, morphological and vibrational. The first determined whether the samples were crystalline or amorphous to locate the type of application they may have; the morphological one offered a microscopic view of the banana, the avocado and the cane, and allowed to know the nanometric scale that can be worked; and the vibrational offered the molecular reference and the own ways of each material.

Professor Rosero points out that considering that each product analyzed already develops other developments – for example, avocado oil, banana starch and cane ethanol are obtained -, the team focused its attention on other characteristics. Thus, they discovered that after some processes the banana peel, the avocado peel and the bagasse of the cane are suitable as a raw material for research.

In a next phase of the investigation three prototypes of each of the products will be made. With these materials the efficiency of each one will be identified, based on the performance of the batteries available in the market.

The great advance in this investigation will be the possibility of discarding the organic batteries as if it were a fruit, since after fulfilling their useful life they degrade, and even work as fertilizer for the earth.

Source: krishijagran