In this modern day and age, I am quite sure just about everyone and their favorite uncle carries a smartphone around. Heck, the smartphone is able to do a whole lot of stuff on your behalf, especially when you are away from the desktop computer, with “there’s an app for that” being an extremely common mantra. The thing is, smartphones are also power hungry devices, and each time battery technology moves forward, the manufacturers themselves throw in even more features that sucks up additional juice to be in operation, hence offsetting the gains made in the battery department. Well, a Virginia Tech research team recently unveiled a new sugar-powered battery which could eventually replace conventional batteries in smartphones and tablets. The targeted time frame for this to happen? We are looking at a window period of as little as three years.
This particularly special battery would use chemical reactions to generate electricity from molecules that can be found in sugar. Sure, this is far from being the first sugar-powered battery that was ever developed, but this early prototype in particular has managed to yield a higher energy density, and would require far less refueling compared to the other models. This is clearly something that we can look forward to, to have it implemented sooner rather than later.
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