In the development of our human society, from crops, fruits and other plants to animals such as cattle, sheep, chickens and ducks, all have been successfully domesticated by us.
Have you ever thought that even if it is the virus that is now scaring us, it might one day work for us?
American scientist Angela M. Belcher has developed such a new technology that can “captive” viruses in lithium batteries, let them work for us, and continue to produce power.
What the hell is going on? This starts from the bottleneck of the development of lithium batteries.
01.
The phone is always out of power, where is the black technology?
A simple lithium battery mainly includes positive and negative electrodes (the positive electrode is generally a lithium compound, and the negative electrode is generally a carbon material) and an electrolyte that connects the two.
When charging, the lithium ions on the positive electrode move to the negative electrode through the electrolyte; and when discharging, the lithium ions return from the negative electrode to the positive electrode. The more lithium ions that move between the positive and negative electrodes, the greater the capacity of the lithium battery.
The process of lithium ion movement, picture source Sohu
In recent years, various new technologies have achieved very rapid development, such as 5G communications, virtual reality, and blockchain. But on the contrary, the development of lithium batteries can be said to be very slow.
Whether it is a commonly used mobile phone or the recent hot new energy electric vehicle, even if it is equipped with a large number of technologically advanced black technologies (such as the rapid charging technology developed by various mobile phone manufacturers), it is always impossible to get rid of the dilemma of frequent charging.
How many times do you charge your phone a day? Image source Sohu
Facing the stagnant development of lithium battery technology, scientists have proposed many improvements, one of which is to reduce the size of the electrode material components to nanometers.
Scientists have discovered that electrodes composed of nanostructures are highly active and the path of ion diffusion and transmission is also very short. The use of nano-electrode materials can significantly improve the electronic ion transport dynamics of the battery, thereby designing a lithium battery with high capacity and stable cycling.
However, nanoelectrodes also have their own limitations, that is, higher cost and lower bulk density, so the nanoelectrodes prepared in the laboratory are still not widely commercially available.
02.
Virus self-assembly technology shows its talents
Since the cost of artificially manufacturing nanostructures is very high, why not use viruses to make nanostructures? After all, the scale of most types of viruses is at the nanometer level, which is a natural electrode structure skeleton.