Edible electronics breakthrough: Scientists have created the first edible rechargeable battery

     A research team at the Italian-Italian Institute of Technology has managed to create a fully edible rechargeable battery made from materials commonly found in our daily diet. The innovative technology is expected to play a role in areas such as health diagnosis, food quality monitoring and edible soft robots. The research is in the journal Advanced Materials.

     According to IT House, edible electronics is a new field that has emerged in recent years and could have a major impact on the diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal diseases, as well as food quality monitoring. One of the most interesting and challenging problems in the future of edible electronics is how to implement edible power.

     Taking inspiration from biochemical REDOX reactions in living organisms, the team at the Italian Institute of Technology developed a battery that uses riboflavin (vitamin B2, found in almonds, for example) as the anode and quercetin (a food additive and ingredient, found in citrus, for example) as the cathode. To increase conductivity, they used edible activated carbon, a common over-the-counter drug, and the electrolyte was water-based. To avoid short-circuiting, each battery has a diaphragm, and they use seaweed as a diaphragm, the kind you find in sushi. They then wrapped the electrodes in beeswax and extracted two food-grade gold contacts (the gold foil used by pastry makers) from a cellulose-derived stand.

     The battery unit operates at 0.65 volts, which is low enough not to cause problems when ingested in the human body. It can deliver 48μA of current for 12 minutes, or a few microamps for more than an hour, enough to power some small electronic devices, such as low-power LED lights, for a period of time. The fully edible rechargeable battery is the first of its kind in the world and will open the door to new edible electronic applications.

     "Possible future applications range from edible circuits and sensors that can monitor health, to sensors that can monitor food storage conditions. And, given the safety of these batteries, they could also be used in children's toys, where there is a high risk of swallowing them. In fact, we are already developing devices with larger capacities and smaller sizes. These developments will also be used to power edible soft robots in the future." Study coordinator Mario Caironi.

     "This edible battery is also very valuable for the energy storage community. Making batteries safer without the use of toxic materials is a challenge we face as demand for batteries surges. While our edible batteries won't power electric cars, they demonstrate that batteries can be made from safer materials than current lithium-ion batteries. We believe they will inspire other scientists to build safer batteries for a truly sustainable future, "added Ivan Ilic, co-author of the study.