"When you take something made by nature that is already complex, you end up spending less time making new material.” said Dwight Seferos, an associate professor at the University.
While bio-derived battery parts have been created previously, this is said to be the first that uses bio-derived polymers for one of the electrodes, instead of costlier, harder to process and more environmentally-harmful metals such as cobalt.
Vitamin B2's ability to be reduced and oxidised makes its well-suited for a lithium ion battery. "B2 can accept up to two electrons at a time," says Seferos. "This makes it easy to take multiple charges and have a high capacity compared to a lot of other available molecules.
"It's a pretty safe, natural compound," Seferos added. "If you wanted to, you could actually eat the source material it comes from."
While the current prototype is on the scale of a hearing aid battery, the team hopes its breakthrough could lay the groundwork for powerful, thin, flexible, and even transparent metal-free batteries that could support the next wave of consumer electronics.