Wednesday, 15th October 2008 (812 views)

An unusual way of using gold to build green energy sources has been highlighted.

A type of virus that infects E.coli bacteria has been discovered to be capable of coating itself in materials that can conduct electricity - such as gold - as outlined by the European Science Foundation.

The natural ability of the virus to multiply rapidly can then be utilised to build compact high-capacity batteries.

Gold nanowires are created by the way in which the viruses arrange themselves, meaning that electricity can be conducted in a tiny space.

A greater surface area means that charge can be packed into a smaller volume, yet still be capable of generating high amounts of power.

However, the Foundation said that commercial realisation of such technologies still lies in the future as researchers perfect the approach.

Much gold nano-research points to future energy technologies, such as work conducted by Brookhaven National Laboratory's Centre for Functional Nanomaterials in New York.

 

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