Vitamin-driven battery for cheaper electronics

                Scientists have created a new vitamin-driven battery that is long-lasting and has a high voltage, paving the way for cheaper consumer electronics that are easier on the environment. The battery is similar to many commercially available high-energy lithium-ion batteries with one difference. It uses flavin from vitamin B2 as the cathode – the part that stores the electricity that is released when connected to a device. “We have been looking to nature for a while to find complex molecules for use in a number of consumer electronic applications,” said Dwight Seferos from University of Toronto in Canada. While bio-derived polymers – long-chain molecules – for one of the electrodes, allowing battery energy to be stored in a vitamin-created plastic, instead of costlier, harder to process and more environmentally-harmful metals such as cobalt.