Edible rechargeable battery among TIME's list of Best Innovations

A rechargeable edible battery developed by IIT-Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology) has been nominated in TIME’s 2023 list of Best Innovations. The battery was selected by TIME among the most impactful innovations of the year that are changing how we live and was listed as one of the special mention inventions. The battery could have several applications, ranging from edible circuits that monitor health conditions to the powering of sensors for monitoring food storage conditions. The full list of nominees has been published on TIME’s best inventions website.

In March 2023 the research paper “An Edible Rechargeable Battery” was published by Mario Caironi’s group in the journal Advanced Materials, describing the proof-of-concept battery cell obtained by using materials that are normally consumed as part of our daily diet, such as almonds, capers and algae. The battery was realised by Mario Caironi, coordinator of the Printed and Molecular Electronics laboratory of the UUT Centre in Milan. Caironi had been researching the electronic properties of food and its by-products, to unite them with edible materials and create new edible electronic materials.

“I am clearly very happy. I must confess I was also surprised TIME selected our invention, and this brings even more satisfaction to all team members, whom I’d like to thank. In research, especially when exploring new paths, on the one side it is already difficult to get results, on the other it is not obvious they would get noticed so quickly. This motivates us even more. A great merit goes to Ivan Ilic, a former member of the team, who led the development of the battery,” Caironi said.

The researchers took inspiration from the biochemical redox reactions that occur in all living beings, and developed a battery that utilises riboflavin (vitamin B12, found for example in almonds) as an anode and quercetin (a food supplement and ingredient, present in capers, among others) as a cathode. Activated charcoal (an over-the-counter medication) was used to increase electrical conductivity, while the electrolyte was water-based. The separator, needed in every battery to avoid short circuits, was made from nori seaweed. Then, electrodes were encapsulated in beeswax from which two food-grade gold contacts (the foil used by pastry chefs) on a cellulose derived support come out.

The battery cell operates at 0.65 V, a voltage low enough not to create problems in the human body when ingested. It can provide a current of 48 μA for 12 minutes, or a few microamps for more than an hour — enough to supply power to small electronic devices, such as low-power LEDs, for a limited time.

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