Yissum develops potato-powered batteries for the developing world
By Laura June 
posted June 20th 2010 9:32AM
posted June 20th 2010 9:32AM
Potato Power - Yissum Introduces Potato Batteries for Use in the Developing World
- Discovery published in the Journal of Renewable Sustainable Energy and Featured in Nature's Research Highlights -
JERUSALEM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, introduces solid organic electric battery based upon treated potatoes. This simple, sustainable, robust device can potentially provide an immediate inexpensive solution to electricity needs in parts of the world lacking electrical infrastructure. The findings were published in the June issue of the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy and are featured in this week's Research Highlights section of Nature.
"The ability to provide electrical power with such simple and natural means could benefit millions of people in the developing word, literally bringing light and telecommunication to their life in areas currently lacking electrical infrastructure."
Researchers at the Hebrew University discovered that the enhanced salt bridge capability of treated potato tubers can generate electricity through means readily available in the developing world. This cheap, easy to use green power source could substantially improve the quality of life of 1.6 billion people, comprising 32% of the developing non-OECD populations, currently lacking access to electrical infrastructure. Such a source can provide important needs, such as lighting, telecommunication, and information transfer.
"The ability to construct efficient vegetative batteries supplies us with a novel way of exploiting bio-energy sources, which are currently primarily used as fuel," said Yaacov Michlin, CEO of Yissum. "The ability to provide electrical power with such simple and natural means could benefit millions of people in the developing word, literally bringing light and telecommunication to their life in areas currently lacking electrical infrastructure."
Prof. Haim D. Rabinowitch from the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment and the research student Alex Golberg from the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University, jointly with Prof. Boris Rubinsky at the University of California at Berkeley, study the electrolytic process in living matter for use in various applications, including the generation of electric energy for self-powered implanted medical electronic devices. In their research, they discovered a new way to construct an efficient battery using zinc and copper electrodes and a slice of your everyday potato. The scientists discovered that the simple action of boiling the potato prior to use in electrolysis, increases electric power up to 10 fold over the untreated potato and enables the battery to work for days and even weeks. The scientific basis of the finding is related to the reduction in the internal salt bridge resistance of the potato battery, which is exactly how engineers are trying to optimize the performance of conventional batteries. The ability to produce and utilize low power electricity was demonstrated by LEDs powered by treated potato batteries.
Cost analyses showed that the treated potato battery generates energy, which is five to 50 folds cheaper than commercially available 1.5 Volt D cells and Energizer E91 cells, respectively. The clean light powered by this green battery is also at least 6 times more economical than kerosene lamps often used in the developing world.
Thus, the boiled potato or other similarly treated vegetables could provide an immediate, environmental friendly and inexpensive solution to many of the low power energy needs in areas of the world lacking access to electrical infrastructure. The long-keeping humble potatoes in particular are a good energy source since they are produced in 130 countries over a wide range of climates, from temperate zones to the subtropics- more than any other crop worldwide, but corn, and thus available year round almost anywhere.
The potato is the world's number one non-grain starch food commodity, with production reaching a record 325 million tons in 2007. Potato consumption is expanding strongly in developing countries, which now account for more than half of the global harvest and where the potato's ease of cultivation and high energy content have made it a valuable cash crop for millions of farmers.
Yissum has made this technology freely available to economically disadvantaged parts of the words.
About Yissum
Yissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Ltd. was founded in 1964 to protect and commercialize the Hebrew University's intellectual property. Ranked among the top technology transfer companies in the world, Yissum has registered over 6,100 patents covering 1,750 inventions; has licensed out 480 technologies and has spun-off 65 companies. Yissum's business partners span the globe and include companies such as Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Merck, Teva, Intel, IBM, Phillips, Syngenta, Vilmorin, Monsanto and many more. For further information please visit www.yissum.co.il.
- Discovery published in the Journal of Renewable Sustainable Energy and Featured in Nature's Research Highlights -
JERUSALEM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, introduces solid organic electric battery based upon treated potatoes. This simple, sustainable, robust device can potentially provide an immediate inexpensive solution to electricity needs in parts of the world lacking electrical infrastructure. The findings were published in the June issue of the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy and are featured in this week's Research Highlights section of Nature.
"The ability to provide electrical power with such simple and natural means could benefit millions of people in the developing word, literally bringing light and telecommunication to their life in areas currently lacking electrical infrastructure."
Researchers at the Hebrew University discovered that the enhanced salt bridge capability of treated potato tubers can generate electricity through means readily available in the developing world. This cheap, easy to use green power source could substantially improve the quality of life of 1.6 billion people, comprising 32% of the developing non-OECD populations, currently lacking access to electrical infrastructure. Such a source can provide important needs, such as lighting, telecommunication, and information transfer.
"The ability to construct efficient vegetative batteries supplies us with a novel way of exploiting bio-energy sources, which are currently primarily used as fuel," said Yaacov Michlin, CEO of Yissum. "The ability to provide electrical power with such simple and natural means could benefit millions of people in the developing word, literally bringing light and telecommunication to their life in areas currently lacking electrical infrastructure."
Prof. Haim D. Rabinowitch from the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment and the research student Alex Golberg from the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University, jointly with Prof. Boris Rubinsky at the University of California at Berkeley, study the electrolytic process in living matter for use in various applications, including the generation of electric energy for self-powered implanted medical electronic devices. In their research, they discovered a new way to construct an efficient battery using zinc and copper electrodes and a slice of your everyday potato. The scientists discovered that the simple action of boiling the potato prior to use in electrolysis, increases electric power up to 10 fold over the untreated potato and enables the battery to work for days and even weeks. The scientific basis of the finding is related to the reduction in the internal salt bridge resistance of the potato battery, which is exactly how engineers are trying to optimize the performance of conventional batteries. The ability to produce and utilize low power electricity was demonstrated by LEDs powered by treated potato batteries.
Cost analyses showed that the treated potato battery generates energy, which is five to 50 folds cheaper than commercially available 1.5 Volt D cells and Energizer E91 cells, respectively. The clean light powered by this green battery is also at least 6 times more economical than kerosene lamps often used in the developing world.
Thus, the boiled potato or other similarly treated vegetables could provide an immediate, environmental friendly and inexpensive solution to many of the low power energy needs in areas of the world lacking access to electrical infrastructure. The long-keeping humble potatoes in particular are a good energy source since they are produced in 130 countries over a wide range of climates, from temperate zones to the subtropics- more than any other crop worldwide, but corn, and thus available year round almost anywhere.
The potato is the world's number one non-grain starch food commodity, with production reaching a record 325 million tons in 2007. Potato consumption is expanding strongly in developing countries, which now account for more than half of the global harvest and where the potato's ease of cultivation and high energy content have made it a valuable cash crop for millions of farmers.
Yissum has made this technology freely available to economically disadvantaged parts of the words.
About Yissum
Yissum Research Development Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Ltd. was founded in 1964 to protect and commercialize the Hebrew University's intellectual property. Ranked among the top technology transfer companies in the world, Yissum has registered over 6,100 patents covering 1,750 inventions; has licensed out 480 technologies and has spun-off 65 companies. Yissum's business partners span the globe and include companies such as Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Merck, Teva, Intel, IBM, Phillips, Syngenta, Vilmorin, Monsanto and many more. For further information please visit www.yissum.co.il.
That's pretty cool actually. Not very practical but in emergency situations I could see this as being a perfectly cheap solutions.
@Incorrigible
"Solution"
@Incorrigible you created a new comment to fix a spelling mistake? I think most of us assumed you didn't mean to add the S.
Just saying(s).
@Incorrigible What are the chances of you landing in an emergency situation would you find yourself with a boiled potato, wires and a light bulb?
Unlikely, unless you were MacGuyver.
@iphonedyou
I'm scared I might get fined by the "grammar police" that are known to patrol Engadget. But as always, someone has to make a comment about everything. As you just did.
@Incorrigible Pretty sure you can power the Irish with potatoes, and then harness that matrix-style so all that energy isn't wasted on drunken pub brawlin.
@Vylen I lol'd hard. Not even Bear Grylls would be that prepared.
@Incorrigible + for the irony of posting a comment, complaining about somebody posting a comment, on the comment you created in response to your comment.
@Vylen
Lol, I couldn't see having to using one myself. But it seems like every time someone needs to make a emergency phone call in movies now days, they could desperately use of these!
@iphonedyou
Sorry you interpreted a "comment" as a "complaint". Your bad! FYI I was just making a statement, though you make it more and more valid every time you reply :-).
@Ducman69
Lol. I don't know if you remember the article about putting sensors in sidewalks to generate energy from the movement of people walking or not. But those would also be useful in those bar brawls.
@iphonedyou Oh just please the both of you shut up on this pedantic topic.
We're talking about potatoes here. POTATOES.
@Incorrigible
Yes, specially if when you don't need the light anymore you can still eat the potato.
In terms of efficiency though I'm certain that the energy needed to boil the tuber is greater than the the one needed to obtain equivalent luminosity from other sources.
@Ducman69
I try not to let myself get bothered by the whole "Irish people are crazy drunks!" but after a while it gets tiring . . We're probably one of the friendliest nations and the brawling really is exaggerated.
Ah well, I'm off to the pub . .
@Vylen dude, do you consider America a developing country?
@Incorrigible I'm surprised that no one else noticed the irony that while your name is "incorrigible" you corrected yourself. :)
@just4chan2day "POTATOES"
Calm down Samwise Gamgee.
@Ducman69 Where do they get the power to boil the potatoes?
@Vylen To hell with McGuyver. McGrubber is the king!
@shogunmaster
Use human power to ignite the fuel in dry sticks. Then use the burning sticks to get water to change phases from liquid to gas.
Now what happens if you try to eat the battery "latkas?"
@10nisman94
As all the prescription medicine commercials go:
"This may cause, diarrhea, vomiting, blindness, loss of appetite, lack of sexual interest, sleeplessness,difficulty breathing, death."
/sarcasm
@Incorrigible
To "what" for days?
@Punisher Plum
to "fart." Can't imagine why they left that little side effect off the press release.
@Incorrigible
You forgot anal leakage. >:)
@Frostblade10 The proper scientific phrase is 'greasy anal discharge'.
These just made the army's job even harder. How you gonna tell a terrorist apart from somebody just powering their TV with this thing? Looks like a bomb belt.
Yeah, let's see that get through airport security.
mmmm tasty batteries. when it goes dead you make french fries. woot woot.
@huskie fluff
now this is a legit question i have been wondering for days now. after you use this (or anything food related) for a battery is it ok to eat? and does it alter the taste. becuase if not then you are basically using 1 food item for two purposes.
@monkeyontherun4
It won't have nutritional value.
@monkeyontherun4 It is not safe to eat, you're adding zinc ions (Zn2+) into the battery. Although zinc is a mineral required by the body, you will get an overdose from that amount.
@AaronX
ahh good to know! thanks
planting C4!
@D V D
I saw 2 things initially "developing nations" and 5 blocks of C4
"...enabling the battery to for days, and sometimes weeks depending on the conditions. "
enabling it to do...? I'm assuming there is a missing word... something like... work/run?
Its nice that it can operate for that long... but what kind of specs are we talking here (amperage, voltage, etc.)... And correct me if I'm wrong, but the electrodes will get expended eventually right? that's the main source of the electromotive force correct?
@benjaminhc
I was thinking the same thing. (both about the missing word and the electrodes).
The question is, what do you do with the potatoes after the battery dies? Are they edible? In all probability they will gain some sort of zinc-copper toxins. And lets not forget the food crisis in developing nations. The energy guys are who make the big bucks: if they see potatoes as a valuable resource, their price will skyrocket, doing more damage than good to the poor people.
@terence
Potatoes don't tend to be a poor nation staple, not through Africa and Asia at least. Think rice and wheat.
I wonder if different potatoes or potatoes grown in certain soils or with certain mineral boosts would be even more energy generating.
@Cy Starkman
I don't see why different potatoes or potatoes of different qualities wouldn't be more effective... but to my understanding, at the end of the day, the electrodes are going to have the biggest impact, and the biggest cost... the potato is just serving as the electrolyte, and whatever they are doing to prepare them (boiling... anything else?) improves its electrolytic ability...
I agree about the poor nation food staple to a certain extent... I know from first hand experience that in certain poorer regions of southern Africa (I did some charity work there), corn meal was used heavily (waste cornmeal from the production of corn products).
Yes this would be an ideal solution for the starving of the world to charge their gadgets...
@BKKKevin Hmmm.... I'm really hungry, but I also need to check my Twitter account!
@BKKKevin Methinks people in the developing world would rather eat the potato than use it for electricity. Just a personal guess.
@BKKKevin Here Starvin Marvin, you can charge your iPad!
@BKKKevin don't worry, I understand your sarcasm even if they don't :)
hasn't everybody done this in school? ok the boiling part is new but apart from that...
@Xstream
I was thinking, its nothing to be proud of to give a slightly modified graid school science project away for free...
Then, this brings about the potato famine of the 21st Century :P
This is old news in a new bottle. 5 out 10 kids in Asia do this as part of their science curriculum at school. This is what is termed as reinventing the wheel.
this is not a new discovery I made this same thing in science class in middle school
this is great! so now once the batteries run out we can just eat them. hurray to no more landfills!