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The government organisation is working on the bio-batteries with Touchlight Genetics in Hampshire, the US Department of Defence and the University of Utah.
As soldiers carry more and more electronic devices with them, the DNA-based batteries could provide a safer and more sustainable power source compared to conventional options.
“The current battery technology that our soldiers are using contains a lot of energy in chemical format,” said Petra Oyston, synthetic biology lead at DSTL. “If that battery gets shot, for example, it’s going to explode and burst into flames.
“Our bio-battery is made out of DNA, enzymes, lactate and water. If you shot it, it would just go ‘splat’, so there’s a significant safety benefit.”
She added: “The fundamental premise is that you can take naturally occurring products such as lactate, and you can degrade them using enzymes. As you degrade them, you release electrons, and these electrons are then available to be captured and used as power.”
The materials are natural and would degrade over time, unlike toxic chemicals found in conventional batteries.
The bio-batteries could also provide off-grid power in a less exposed way than solar panels, which need to be out in the open.
The DNA is used as a ‘functional platform’, or structural scaffold for the other materials. Coded sequences allow it to bind an ‘enzyme cascade’, which generates the energy.
The concept is scalable, said Oyston, and could take the form of large batteries, ones that are too small to see, or a completely new format, such as a coating.
The bio-batteries could even be dried down and reconstituted when needed, said Tom Adie, head of platforms at Touchlight Genetics: “You have an incredibly energy-dense battery that can be carried very portably. It’s very light and you can reconstitute it anywhere [from] seawater, freshwater. So you can carry it on ships, you can carry it in disaster areas.”
One of the most important steps was making the required enzymes work together, said Oyston. Having done so, the team achieved electric current density of 40 milliamps per centimetre squared.
The project’s next step will be a technology demonstrator. The main challenge will be generating sufficient power, but members of the project said they were confident it could be achieved.
“It’s vital in this day and age that the army considers sustainability and its impact on the environment,” said a DSTL military adviser. “This is the type of project that offers the military amazing benefits. It will save lives. It is the sort of technology defence needs.”
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