Nanowire production using viruses for better lithium-air batteries

(MIT, November 13, 2013)

Lithium-air batteries have become a hot research area in recent years. They hold the promise of drastically increasing power per battery weight. But bringing that promise to reality has faced a number of challenges, including the need to develop better, more durable materials for the batteries’ electrodes and improving the number of charging-discharging cycles the batteries can withstand. MIT researchers have found that adding genetically modified viruses to the production of nanowires — wires that are about the width of a red blood cell, and which can serve as one of a battery’s electrodes — could help solve some of these problems. Unlike wires “grown” through conventional chemical methods, these virus-built nanowires have a rough, spiky surface, which dramatically increases their surface area, providing a big advantage in lithium-air batteries.