BIOFLUID POWERED BATTERIES

BIOFLUID-POWERED BATTERIES

BIOFLUID-POWERED BATTERIES

Seminar Report 2008-2009

Presented by ADARSH M ALEX Electrical & Electronics

VII Semester Roll No : 7303

BIOFLUID-POWERED BATTERIES

BIOFLUID-POWERED BATTERIES

Human body is the biggest natural miracle machine and different types of bio fluids like gas breathed out (i.e., carbon dioxide), night soil/stool and urine are major wastes byproducts of this machine. Today we can discuss about the paper battery that generates electricity from urine.

FabricationIn this battery, a

magnesium (Mg) layer and copper chloride (CuCl) in the filter paper are used as the anode and the cathode, respectively. A stack consisting of a Mg layer, CuCl-doped filter paper and a copper (Cu) layer sandwiched between two plastic layers is laminated into the paper batteries by passing through the heating roller at 120 °C.

Dimensions

The battery is just 1 millimeter thick and 60 by 30 mm across – slightly smaller than a credit card.

How does it work?

• Urine contains many ions (electrically charged atoms), which allows electricity-producing chemical reaction to take place in the urine battery. When a drop of urine is added to the paper through a slit in the plastic, a chemical reaction takes place that produces electricity.

How much does this rate in performance?

The urine-powered battery was able to generate a voltage of about 1.5 volts – with a corresponding power of 1.5 micro-watts – using just 0.2 milliliters of urine.

And if a second droplet of urine was added 15 hours after the battery was first activated, the replenished urine could generate still more electricity.

A Big Leap !!!

Recently, scientists successfully demonstrated batteries in series (half credit-card size) that power two LEDs and a electrical driving circuits. The half credit card-sized paper battery supply 3 volts for the circuit to switch LEDs on and off.

An Experimental Truth

Application

The test kit consists of a urine-activated battery, biosensors for disease detection, electric circuits (not shown in the above figure), and a display for showing test results. Introduced urine activates the battery and then the electricity from the battery powers the others. If somebody need a checkup, they could purchase a healthcare test kit from a pharmacy and do the test. These fully-integrated biochip systems have a huge market potential.

Biofluid-activated battery and biosensors are integrated into disposable credit card-sized biochips for healthcare diagnostic applications.

Conclusion

Though nature makes best use of these bio-fluid by-products, but scientists are always keen in making this type of technological use of these products.

Reference

Electronics For You Magazine.

http://www.kblab.biz