Abstract
Presenting new sources of safe energy sources is not only an urgent need but also a vital input for social and economic development. In this work, we present a novel technology to produce electric energy from food; in particular from commercial potatoes. The food has been sandwiched between two metals; for example, Zn/potatoes/Cu and the open circuit electric potentials V(oc) have been measured. It has been found that V(oc) lay in the range V(oc) 0.32V< V(oc) < 1.39V and decays exponentially by time. The open circuit potential varies from food to another and depends also on the metallic contacts and food thickness. It has been found that V(oc) is a function of the potatoes thickness, which has a maximum at 1.05V and the corresponding maximum short circuit current is about 1.7 mA. The internal resistivity for the potatoes battery is about 1.4 x 10(4) Omega cm and the metallic electrodes resistance is about 57.4 Omega x area for Zn/Cu electrodes. The short circuit current depends on the nature of the metallic electrodes and the food itself. This current is very sensitive to the food thickness. At a critical thickness when the potato slice is about 0.18 cm, the maximum short circuit current density of the potatoes battery is about 15.7 mu A/cm(2). The maximum electric power, generated at 0.18 cm, equals 155 mu W/cm(2). The Zn/potatoes/Cu battery has electric capacity 2.57 times more efficient than an AA/LR6 1.5V alkaline Energizer (R) battery. Also, cost analysis has showed that potatoes-cells generate electric energy 26 fold cheaper than commercially available Energizer (R) battery. This work presents a new energy source: Safe, economic, durable, and renewable; also it can fit most applications. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3659289]