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Future Batteries Could Run on Brown Liquor The cathode is
often one of the most expensive components of a battery--especially if
it's made of cobalt or precious metal. A Swedish scientist may have discovered
a way to replace pricey metal cathodes with a goopy byproduct of paper
processing known as "brown liquor."
Brown liquor is the result of the Sulfite process for producing wood
pulp. Wood chips are bathed in sulfurous acid in pressure vessels to
extract the lignin and break down the wood fiber. The brown sludge is
a mix of spent chemicals, lignin, and hemicellulose. It is often burned
to generate steam in the paper mill, but it apparently makes a decent
low-cost cathode as well.
Olle Inganas, Professor of Biomolecular and Organic Electronics at
Linköping University in Sweden, and Grzegorz Milczarek, a researcher
at Pozna? University of Technology in Poland made the discovery which
was published in the journal Science.
"Nature solved the problem long ago," Inganas is quoted in a University
article. He credits the photosynthetic process as inspiration for the
discovery. Brown liquor is primarily broken-down lignin, part of the
cell wall. Lignin can be further broken down further into quizones,
electrically conductive molecules that transport electrons during photosynthesis.
By encasing the sludge in a conductive polymer, the team created an
inexpensive cathode--with quizones carrying electrons across the semi-permeable
membrane--and capable of holding a charge. At least for a while.
The current prototype continually discharges when it is idle, running
down in a matter of hours. The team believes they can stabilize the
cathode by fiddling with the specific lignin derivative and create a
low-cost, green battery.
Republished with permission from Gizmodo.com.
Andrew Tarantola can be reached at: atarantola@gizmodo.com.
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