There have been a number of speculations regarding the general utilisation of automobile technology in cars. Research and Development teams of renowned manufacturers put in their efforts day after day relentlessly to make some breakthrough invention in the automobile industry. New technology in cars is something, which is wildly sought-after irrespective of global differences. Whether it is about cars in India or any other place in the world, most car manufacturers strive to make a technological discovery to bring down the cost of operating an automobile. In this aspect, a debate always has persisted since the evolution of battery powered cars. There are mainly two types of batteries used to power an automobile – glucose based battery and lithium based battery. Researchers have tried to find out which among these is a better choice and there is not much difference of opinion about the fact that glucose based ones clearly is a step ahead of a lithium based powerhouse.
Glucose is an excellent source of energy for living beings and this concept has been put to use by the scientists of Virginia Tech to develop bio-batteries. In humans, glucose is able to produce approximately 3.75 kilocalorie of food energy for each gram. The similar concept was utilised for powering a fuel cell with sugar. The result was quite astounding as the energy that was produced was definitely greater than that of lithium-ion batteries by a fair margin.
The new battery is productive on a similar scale and has a storage density of approximately 596 amp-hours for a kilogram. This amount of energy is ordinarily described as one order of magnitude, which equals to approximately ten times more than a standard lithium based battery. If this can be efficiently produced and stored for a longer time duration and effortlessly, automobile technology in cars might have just hit another benchmark. Definitely, the new technology will take some time before it is utilised in cars in India. However, this might be another way to bring the costs of operating a car further down, keeping in mind the eco-friendly factor at the same time. There are a number of unknown parameters yet, like one being the stability of the glucose based battery over multiple discharge and charge cycles and the utility of such batteries in electric automobiles. Once, these issues are ironed out and the problems meticulously dealt with, get ready to run your vehicles on sugar. Undoubtedly, technology will find out a way to make the sound of the car engines sweeter down the line.
