Battery team gets a charge out of lignin
Friday, August 17, 2012 - 04:04
in Physics & Chemistry
(Phys.org) -- Creating energy from wood waste has progressed from novel idea to renewable energy work in development. Researchers from Poland and Sweden are using a waste product from the paper making process to develop a battery. That material is lignin. Olle Inganäs, professor of biomolecular and organic electronics at Linköping University in Sweden and Grzegorz Milczarek, a researcher at Poznań University of Technology in Poland, have completed a study that shows how it is done. They maintain that the insulating qualities of lignin derivatives can be combined with the conductivity of the polymer polypyrrole to create a composite material that effectively holds an electric charge.