Sunday, January 10, 2010

Coke-powered cell phone

Not another spin on the old lemon battery. But I'm unfamiliar with what's actually going on here. According to the article, "the Eco-Friendly cellphone runs on an innovative battery which makes use of enzymes to generate electricity from carbohydrates."

I'm sure I should know how that works. But I don't. Or maybe I do and I just don't know that I do. Feel free to enlighten me in the comments.

It does remind me of the clever T-shirt I saw at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium recently: "Burn Carbohydrates, Not Hydrocarbons".

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4 comments:

  1. Stevie Ray6:01 PM

    Dissimilar metals (copper and zinc?) bathed in an electrolyte (carbonic acid) connected to an external circuit - did I miss something here or is there some Woo-ness I'm failing to acknowledge?

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  2. Lee Trampleasure2:42 AM

    My guess is we'll find it's a hoax, or at least a publicity stunt and not likely to ever get to market. Even the article says it's a cellphone "concept."

    But just to check: My Palm Treo battery is rated at 3.7V and 1,600mAH. If I've done the math right, that's about 21 kJ of energy.

    Coke has 97 calories/8 oz (a can is bigger, but it doesn't look like the can can hold more than 8 oz). That's 406 kJ of energy (remember nutritional calories are really kCals). So, if we could get 10% of the energy from the coke out as electricity, we still get double my battery.

    But, I still suspect it's a hoax. I wait to be proven otherwise, although I did find evidence of a "sugar battery" http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/23/sonys-achieves-worlds-highest-output-from-sugar-battery/.

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  3. Marc "Zeke" Kossover5:47 AM

    Back in 2007 Sony claimed to have a bio battery that worked on sugars. Check out

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  4. Stevie Ray7:08 PM

    If this is a Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) device, then you'll probably also have to add E. coli to the thing. GREAT - now my cell phone not only gives be bad battery life, it might also give me a severe case of gastroenteritis! I'm stickin' to the inorganic chemistry batteries thank you all the same.

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