We continue to hear stories of innovative uses for traditionally wasted food
ingredients — some of our favorites include turning stale bread into
beer,
spent brewery
grains
into nutritious snacks, tomato waste into
plastic;
used coffee grounds into everything from
biofuel
and 3D-printing
filament
to
clothing;
milk whey into
vodka
and probiotic
drinks;
shellfish shells into
plastic
and
purses;
and waste from
tequila,
coffee
and soy
milk
production into nutrient-rich flours, just to name a few. Now, apparently, the
inedible core of the world's stinkiest fruit — the durian — can be used to
charge your phone, according to researchers at the University of Sydney.
The durian — a fruit native to Southeast Asia, whose smell is so pungent and
noxious (to most) that it has
been forbidden in many public places in its native countries — may now pack
another kind of punch: Scientists at the University of Sydney's School of
Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering have taken the inedible cores of tropical
fruit such as durian and jackfruit; heated, then freeze-dried them; and used
them to create an aerogel (imagine the look and feel of a light sponge) – the
inside of which can be filled with an electrolyte and used as a battery. The
aerogel becomes a critical part of a supercapacitor – an energy-storage device.
The researchers say these fruit-core aerogels can sometimes charge faster than
average batteries, due to their structure — which could make them ideal for
harvesting energy from EV braking systems, for example.
While they can charge and discharge energy quickly, as of now these aerogels
lack the longevity of a standard battery — but their potential is compounded by
their environmental benefits, as a climate-friendly alternative to the
fossil-based materials traditionally used in to produce them.
As Brian Derby, Professor of Materials Science in the School of Materials at
the University of Manchester,
explained
on PRI’s “The World” this week: “[Making] use of a waste product, that’s
spectacularly useful — normally, to make these aerogels, you would use oil,
petroleum products from the ground; or possibly tar coming from coal. So, this
would be a renewable source — we wouldn’t be using carbon which was locked up in
the earth, which contributes to global warming during extraction. One of the
ways in which we can get around the climate emergency is just being a lot more
efficient in everything we do.”
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One limitation to rolling out tropical-fruit core batteries on a global scale is
that the fruits can only be grown in certain regions and climates; but other
studies around the world have used everything from rice husks and tofu to garlic
to charge smartphones and other devices, so stay tuned.
Learn more about how durian and jackfruit cores could revolutionize electric
battery charging
here.
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Feb 28, 2020 1pm EST / 10am PST / 6pm GMT / 7pm CET