Battery researchers are working hard to one day build much more environmentally friendly batteries than at present. Why not just take these unprocessed materials from nature?
That's exactly what scientists from the USA have now done. They are using a chemical as a basic material that also occurs in the shells of crustaceans: chitin is neither flammable nor biologically harmful. Through chemical processing and the addition of acetic acid, chitin can be wonderfully synthesized and used as an electrolyte for a zinc battery.
The Helmholtz Institute in Ulm has also been developing unusual batteries since 2016: Batteries made from apple residues. The apple residues are dried and sieved for this purpose. Later, this powder is used to produce a carbon-based active material consisting of various layered oxides. The material is still considered highly attractive today and shows excellent electrochemical properties.
Our podcast guest Professor Dr. Maximilian Fichtner also gives an impressive account of a substance called copper porphyrin as a battery material. Copper porphyrin is found in the blue blood of spiders. "We have chemically modified biological copper porphyrin and stabilized it with a trick," Fichtner reports. The storage capacities achieved are similar to those of lithium and sodium. Another advantage is performance, i.e. fast-charging capability. The only visible disadvantage so far is that the new cells are once again larger than the lithium-based systems.
