Study: Virus Could Extend Battery Life

An international joint research team led by a Korean scientist has developed a technology that can increase the capacity of a lithium-ion battery by using a virus.

Nam Ki-tae, a 29-year-old doctoral candidate in the Department of Material Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) said yesterday, “The capacity of a lithium-ion battery tripled after attaching a cathode material made by manipulating the genes of the M13 virus to the battery.”

The research was introduced on the online version of the journal Science yesterday.

Three Korean scientists participated in the research, including Nam, listed as the first author, Yoo Pil-jin, a 31-year-old researcher in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT, and Kim Dong-wan, a 34-year-old senior researcher at the Material Science and Technology Division of Korea Institute of Science and Technology.

Lithium-ion batteries, which mainly use carbon as their cathode material, are widely used to power electronics goods, including mobile phones and camcorders.

The battery’s electric storage capacity is known to improve by replacing carbon with a cobalt compound. But such replacement is not easy because the production of cobalt compounds requires a complicated procedure, including heating at a high temperature.

The research team manipulated M13’s genes so that the protein which easily combines with cobalt can be created on the surface of the virus.

The team produced cobalt compound by placing the virus in water which contained cobalt, and used the compound as cathode material of the lithium-ion battery.

It was proved that electric storage capacity of the battery was triple that of the lithium-ion battery using carbon.

The research team also found that the battery capacity increases an additional 0.3 times by manipulating the genes of M13 so that its surface protein combines not only with cobalt but also with gold.

Nam said, “We can make a slim and flexible battery by arraying the virus on one layer,” adding, “It is the first time ever to utilize an organism in production of an electronic instrument.

sohyung@donga.com