 Presentation at a Conference
in the United States and the
Press Release
We had two purposes in making this
announcement. First, we wanted to earn
support from the academic community by
publishing in an academic setting. This is
because we still need many new ideas, technologies,
and materials to move towards
practical implementation.
The other purpose was that in publicly
announcing Sony's results to date in bio battery
development, we wanted not only to
energize this field but also to create strong
public support by having large numbers of
ordinary citizens become aware of this
work.
Although prior to publication, we were worried
about what sort of reception this work
would receive, by demonstrating high power
output even under passive conditions, and
furthermore, by demonstrating something
actually being operated (we operated a
radio controlled car at the conference in the
United States), our presentation succeeded
in having a large impact. After this publication,
our web site was accessed frequently,
not only by respected professors,
but also by persons in related industries and
the media as well.
The Attraction of this Work as
Science
Bio batteries involve many aspects that
are of academic interest. The results we
achieved were new knowledge and generated
either academic papers or patents.
As such, it is not unreasonable to call this
work "leading-edge science."
For example, when immobilizing enzymes
on electrodes, it was thought that the activity
changed with the molecule orientation and structure. Although we did not go so
far as to control those aspects in the bio
battery developed in this work, it is an area
in which much research is being carried out,
and if biotechnology and electronics are further
fused and advanced, in the future, it
will be possible to freely control the functions
that biomaterials and systems have.
I hope to rapidly increase the performance
(including the power output level) of these
devices by incorporating the latest research
results such as these in our bio battery
development.
Since we are now in an age where products
are created by combining a variety of
technologies, it is important, not just for bio
batteries, to move forward with research while
carefully observing other technology developments
that are occurring.
My Difficulties in the Past
were the Catalyst
I chose physics and chemistry in high
school and didn't study biology. In college,
however, life sciences were a required
course, and I suddenly found myself studying
leading edge topics such as the nature
of DNA. Since all I had was a junior high
school level of knowledge, it was difficult.
However, at that time I did feel that the energy
conversion systems in living organisms
were fascinating.
In college, I studied catalytic chemistry
and then worked on lithium ion battery
cathode materials at Sony. Then, in my third
year at Sony, when we were considering
what new themes to work on at the research
labs, I recalled the life sciences that had
been so difficult in college. This might lead
to resolving the issues of high power capacities
and environmental concern, I thought.
One never knows what will prove useful.
A New Technology that is also
Fun
Although we had the basic ideas at the start,
the power output levels were essentially zero
at first, and increased only gradually. The
process of improving performance took a
long time. For that reason alone, we were
overjoyed when the propeller first turned.
The members of the group all went out to
celebrate that night.
The people who came to gather information
for articles were fascinated, and brought
with them a wide range of isotonic drinks,
asking "will it work with this?" for each of
them. Of course, if this technology ever
becomes practical, we won't be using commercial
soft drinks. That would only happen
in an emergency, although in an emergency
you would be better off drinking the
drinks yourself.
We Are Also Considering the
Complete Carbon Cycle
At this time we are only presenting the
results of basic research; this is not the final
form of this device. Since this device can
only use part of the electrical energy stored
in glucose, we must increase its generation
efficiency. We are moving forward
with research in the direction of breaking
down gluconolactone to carbon dioxide by
using additional enzymes.
We have built a team consisting of specialists
in both electrical engineering and life sciences.
In addition to fusing the technologies
we are also "fusing the people" into a
cohesive group that is working together
intently so that we may again create a presentation
with similar impact. Keep your eye
on Sony for the future of bio batteries. |
Vol.51