Gizmorama - October 5, 2015

Good Morning,

If you could make a battery more durable and longer lasting how would you do it? Would you add mushrooms? No, really!

Scientists believe that adding mushrooms will improve lithium-ion batteries in a big way! No, really!

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

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*-- Scientists use portabellas to make more durable batteries --*
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Lithium-ion batteries power everything from smartphones to electric cars. They're remarkably efficient. But they don't last forever; over time, the batteries' anodes deteriorate.

That's where portabella mushrooms come in.

Engineers and material scientists at the University of California, Riverside used portabellas to create a new battery that better withstands the test of time.

The new lithium-ion battery features anodes made of portabella mushrooms. In addition to being more durable, they're also more inexpensive and environmentally friendly. And because portabellas are easy to grow, the anodes are much easier to produce.

Currently, anodes in lithium batteries are made of graphite. But graphite is costly and its production process is timely, tedious and harmful to the environment. Mushrooms attracted scientists because they're extremely porous.

Battery anodes must provide structure, but also feature porosity -- enabling energy to be both transferred and stored more easily. Whereas graphite degrades over time as the result of electrode damage, the high concentration of potassium salt in portabellas improves the material's electrode capacity over time.

As lithium-ion batteries power more and more new technologies, the demand for graphite will become unsustainable, researchers argue. And new research suggests mushroom carbon anodes are a viable replacement.

"With battery materials like this, future cell phones may see an increase in run time after many uses, rather than a decrease, due to apparent activation of blind pores within the carbon architectures as the cell charges and discharges over time," Brennan Campbell, a grad student in Riverside's material science program, said in a press release.

The new research is detailed in the journal Scientific Reports.


*-- New device tests shellfish for sickness-causing toxins --*
BELFAST, Northern Ireland - For some unlucky eaters, the presence of marine toxins in mussels, clams, shrimp and other shelled seafood causes diarrhetic shellfish poisoning.

A new device promises to more efficiently and quickly detect the presence of such toxins and prevent sickness-causing shellfish from making it to the kitchen.

The device, designed by a team of diagnostics scientists from the U.S. and Europe, tests for the presence of okadaic acid (OA) and dinophysis toxins, which are produced by some algal blooms and absorbed by filter-feeding shellfish.

To protect consumers from tainted shellfish, regulators require samples from fishermen's hauls to be sent away and tested at labs with specialized diagnostic equipment. The new device, however, is small, portable and offers instant results, enabling shellfish to be tested on the spot -- whether on a fishing boat or at the docks.

The device's development was led by researcher Waqass Jawaid, a scientists with diagnostics company Neogen Europe Limited and Queen's University's Institute for Global Food Security.

In a press release, Jawaid and his colleagues promised their new mobile device "maintained the rigorous testing standards of off-site labs."

Researchers say the device works like a pregnancy test using an antibody that binds and reacts to the presence of three common okadaic acid toxins. The technology is called a lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA). Twenty-minute results mean shellfish with positive tests can be discarded before ever making it to shore.

"If the LFIA readout is negative, then an additional, easy-to-use test could be conducted dockside for 'total toxins,' which would include detection of a fourth type of OA," researchers explained.

The new device is detailed in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry.

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