Scientists have developed the world's first battery powered by vitamin B2 and glucose. It's based on the same principles the human body uses to convert food into energy. This advance paves the way for the production of environmentally safe batteries using inexpensive materials.
In the body, riboflavin facilitates energy transfer during metabolism, and within batteries, it performs a similar role—transferring electrons between electrodes and electrolytes, generating an electric current.
The prototype uses a carbon electrode and two electrolytes. The first electrolyte achieves a power density comparable to commercial vanadium batteries, while the second electrolyte is less efficient but more affordable, making it suitable for commercial deployment.
Oxygen breaks down riboflavin in the presence of light, causing self-discharge, but even so, the oxygen battery performs better than previous glucose batteries.
The researchers plan to eliminate the vitamin's light sensitivity and improve its stability to advance this technology to industrial scale. If successfully scaled up, the vitamin-sugar battery could become an environmentally friendly alternative to battery systems based on toxic metals.
