powered by your own body. We’ll take a look, today on
Engineering Works!
- Lightweight, compact devices could power medical devices.
- Eat a Snickers bar to power up.
These days, everybody’s looking for new sources of electricity. All our portable electronics -- iPods, cell phones, laptops -- they all need good batteries to keep playing or talking or
calculating. The batteries we have really aren’t that good. They’re not much better than the voltaic pile battery Alessandro Volta invented more than 200 years ago.
Engineering researchers are looking into a new power source. They’re looking, well, into themselves.
It’s pretty simple – and complicated, all at the same time. Imagine a small chip – called a biofuel cell – that uses sugar and oxygen to generate electricity. Now, imagine that biofuel cell is implanted in your arm. The oxygen and sugar is in your blood. Can you see it now? Electricity. It’s always there and always being recharged. Running low on power? Grab a Coke or a candy bar.
The engineers really aren’t interested in a new way for you to power your iPod. Not yet, anyway. They’re looking for lightweight, compact, dependable ways for astronauts to power things like medical sensors in space. Now, they’re getting ready to send one up in a satellite to see how well it does in orbit. No people. Just tiny tanks of sugar and oxygen. The people will come later, they hope.
Well, our iPod sounds like it’s going flat. Guess we need to grab a Snickers bar. See you next time.
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go ahead n put ur thoughts !!