Vitamin Powered Batteries Are Greener Alternative To Metal Ion Based Batteries

Vitamin-powered batteries were created by a team of Harvard University chemists to store a day's worth of energy. The vitamin-powered batteries project is aimed to  respond to climate change concerns as these organic batteries are alternative solutions to lithium based batteries.

The vitamin-powered batteries are developed using carbon-based organic molecules that pose as charge carriers. Usually, batteries use conventional metal ions.

The original version of the vitamin-powered batteries study used organic compounds from rhubarb known as quinones as charge carriers. However, it is the vitamin-powered batteries vitamin B2 compound that has higher energy storage capacity.

The current vitamin-powered batteries research also uses the "organic flow" obtained vitamin B2 as charge carriers. The research team is currently working on enlarging the scale of battery technology and testing through real applications to reveal potential flaws. The vitamin-powered batteries team are also considering other molecules that may perform well as vitamin B2 batteries, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science reported.

The vitamin-powered batteries are just like the conventional metal based batteries that uses electrical currents generated as two liquids pass on both sides. However, despite metal flow batteries being rechargeable and have a long half life, the metals are expensive and toxic, not to mention poorly manufactured, Science Mag reported.

Through the use of vitamin-powered batteries instead of lithium batteries, the environment and people will benefit since lithium batteries are reported to overheat and often explode.

The vitamin-powered batteries also have the advantage of storing more than one day's worth of energy use compared to other renewable sources like solar and wind energies. The problem with other alternative sources like wind and solar energies can be unpredictable because they depend on the weather to harvest energy.

Vitamin-powered batteries are not dependent on the changes in climate and renders a sustainable solution to store green energy. Using organic molecules as its base, it is created from available and cheap materials at room temperatures making vitamin-powered batteries less expensive and environmentally cleaner.