Ever thought of a battery that can vitiate itself? Scientists from Lowa University have made this possible. They have come up with such batteries which are made up of special polymers that can degrade themselves in 90 minutes after the consumption.
Though generally the electronic devices are made keeping in mind that they will be last long and will be used for a longer period of time but it looks like “transient electronics” has defied this statement and are specially designed in such a way that they can degrade themselves in the presence of environmental elements such as light, moisture, heat etc whenever they have completed their work.
Now even the batteries for such “transient electronics” have been developed by the “Lowa State University” which deteriorates itself whenever it comes in direct contact to the water. Where these self-destructing batteries can be used?
These batteries find use in all the environmental sensors that don’t need to be recovered once they are used or consumed. There are consumer commodities also which biodegrade themselves once they used and these batteries can be used in such products as well.
What this battery consists of?
Scientist in Lowa State University has developed these batteries which offer capacity of 2.5V and is made up to Li-Ion. These batteries are powerful enough to deliver the power to a desktop calculator for almost 15 minutes and after that they can be dipped in water where it dissolves in 90 minutes.
This battery contains 8 layers along with anode, cathode and electrolyte separators. These layers and everything is further encapsulated within two layers which are made up of a Polymer based on Polyvinyl alcohol. The USP of this Polyvinyl-alcohol based polymer is that whenever this polymer comes in contact with water it breaks down and also takes the electrodes along with it.
The scientists said that making similar bigger batteries are feasible but problems with such big batteries are that they will take quite some long time to dispose off, we can state that by the fact that a normal small battery takes about 90 minutes to self-destruct completely. Therefore scientists suggested that instead of one battery with huge capacity we can use smaller batteries which will be multiple in size.
Professor Reza Montazami claimed that these batteries are first of its kind and demonstrates a decent shelf life for the practical use as well as is a good amalgamation of power and safety.
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