Electrical energy from foods

Abstract

Presenting new sources of safe energy sources is not only an urgent need but also a vital input for social and economic development. In this work, we present a novel technology to produce electric energy from food; in particular from commercial potatoes. The food has been sandwiched between two metals; for example, Zn/potatoes/Cu and the open circuit electric potentials V oc have been measured. It has been found that V oc lay in the range V oc 0.32 V V oc 1.39 V and decays exponentially by time. The open circuit potential varies from food to another and depends also on the metallic contacts and food thickness. It has been found that V oc is a function of the potatoes thickness, which has a maximum at 1.05 V and the corresponding maximum short circuit current is about 1.7 mA. The internal resistivity for the potatoes battery is about 1.4 10 4 cm and the metallic electrodes resistance is about 57.4 area for Zn/Cu electrodes. The short circuit current depends on the nature of the metallic electrodes and the food itself. This current is very sensitive to the food thickness. At a critical thickness when the potato slice is about 0.18 cm, the maximum short circuit current density of the potatoes battery is about 15.7 A/cm 2. The maximum electric power, generated at 0.18 cm, equals155 W/cm 2. The Zn/potatoes/Cu battery has electric capacity 2.57 times more efficient than an AA/LR6 1.5 V alkaline Energizer battery. Also, cost analysis has showed that potatoes-cells generate electric energy 26 fold cheaper than commercially available Energizer battery. This work presents a new energy source: Safe, economic, durable, and renewable; also it can fit most applications. © 2011 American Institute of Physics.