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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University presented their work on batteries powered by non-toxic melanin pigments [chemistryworld.com] at the American Chemical Society annual meeting [acs.org]. These batteries do not contain the typical toxic metals found in regular batteries, so they would be safer to use in medical devices that are meant to enter the body.

Besides their role in skin pigment, one of the things melanins are good at is attaching to metals [nih.gov], which is known as metal chelation.

‘We thought, if they have this kind of electron exchange capability and this kind of cation chelation capability, then that really is what a battery material is in its essence,’ Bettinger said at a press conference. ‘We have really leveraged those existing properties in a different context and made this new invention.’

They found that their batteries can deliver 5 to 10 mW of power over a span of about 18 hours, which is optimal for powering ingestible medical devices that take about 20 hours to pass through the body.

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