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The US Navy’s Office of Naval Research Global, working with the UK Defence, Science and Technology Laboratory and UK-based Touchlight, has launched a research program to develop a DNA-based battery that could address current limitations of portable and off-grid power supply.
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The need for safe, stable, high-capacity portable power sources is in demand. With increased mobility and an insatiable need to power smart devices, supplying and storing energy is a desired commodity.
This commodity becomes even more critical when operating in austere or constrained environments. Today’s batteries have their limitations: They require regular charging by conventional power supply, and their active ingredient can be both a safety risk in use and disposal. Often the key element of today’s battery is also a rare earth metal.
The UK-based Touchlight in partnership with the Minteer Research Group, based at the University of Utah, have taken on the challenge to revolutionize the concept of the battery.
The team is working to develop a DNA-based battery that could address current limitations of portable and off-grid power supply. The project is supported by a joint grant from the US Office of Naval Research Global (ONR Global) and the UK Ministry of Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).
Significant advancements have been made in bio-based batteries and fuel cells since they were first proposed in the 1960s. Synthetic biology is providing a revolutionary platform to create batteries that will out-compete today’s state-of-the-art lithium ion batteries.
A bio-based battery is a device that contains both the enzymatic pathway to oxidise a desired fuel and the fuel itself. These reactions can convert complex organic fuels (e.g., alcohols, carbohydrates, fatty acids) into energy.
Shelley Minteer, the Dale and Susan Poulter Endowed Chair of Biological Chemistry at the University of Utah, said, "The big vision behind this project is to develop an entirely different form of energy storage device that could change the way we power a number of devices and activities."
The resulting electrons are then transferred to a load via electrodes that are in close contact with the enzymes. The benefit of being able to generate electricity from these fuels is that they are abundant, renewable and inexpensive to source because they are typically waste by-products.
The fuel source also has very high energy densities, but they are not usually suitable for conventional energy generation.
"The proposed battery design has a very low environmental footprint: It is composed of largely renewable products, is biodegradable and is dehydratable for reduced transport costs," Minteer added.
Touchlight has developed, patented and scaled the fully enzymatic means of large-scale DNA amplification that could unlock the potential of DNA enabled bio-based batteries.
Touchlight’s product, dbDNA, is a unique, linear, closed-ended DNA construct that can be fully tailored with short, simple or very long and complex sequences. Over the next 24 months, Touchlight will develop and test a proof-of-concept DNA enabled bio-based battery device, with the support of ONR Global and Dstl.
The proposed device has a number of unique and attractive features, which could revolutionise power supply:
- Fully renewable and biodegradable;
- Improved safety, due to removal of toxic and combustible substance; and
- Dehydratable for reduced weight in transport and storage.
Minteer said, "If the predicted levels of efficiency are achieved, this device could unlock biological energy harvesting of power for implanted or wearable devices. This project will focus on evaluating efficiency, stability and storage capacity."
Touchlight was established in 2008 on the conviction that our ever-increasing understanding of DNA would lead to its emergence as a material of the future.
Stephen Kuper
Steve has an extensive career across government, defence industry and advocacy, having previously worked for cabinet ministers at both Federal and State levels.
