Scientists from South Korea and the United States on Friday said they have developed a technology that can make next generation rechargeable batteries using a harmless virus, according to Yonhap News Agency.
The MIT team led by Angela Belcher and made up of South Korean graduate students and research engineers said they have been able to use the M13 virus to create a prototype lithium-ion battery.
A lithium-ion battery works by getting ions to flow between the negatively charged anode and positively charged cathode.
Belcher, a material science professor announced three years ago that she had engineered a virus that helped build an anode, coated with a cobalt oxide and gold. At the time no headway was made in using this method to make an efficient cathode, which is harder to create.
This limit has been overcome with the latest technology that genetically modified M13 viruses to receive amorphous iron phosphate and carbon nano tubes that combined to make the cathode end of a battery. M13 is a nanometer long and 10 nanometers in diameter and is a virus that infects bacteria but is harmless to humans.