How to hack a snail to create a living battery

Sandrine Ceurstemont, editor, New Scientist TV

You may not expect much from a garden snail. Some clever hacking can turn it into a living battery, though. Evgeny Katz and his team from Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, have successfully implanted a biofuel cell in a snail for the first time, allowing it to generate electricity for the remaining months of its life.

In this exclusive video, you can watch how the animal was turned into a power source. Through slits cut in its shell, electrodes coated with enzymes are implanted in its body. Glucose and oxygen in the snail's blood become fuel to generate electricity when the electrodes are hooked up to an external circuit.

The researchers demonstrated that an "electrified" snail could be a living battery producing up to 7?milliwatts. Although the power output decreased rapidly, feeding the snail could partially refuel it straight away. Alternatively, allowing the snail to rest for about half an hour would allow it to recharge.

Although electrifying snails and other small animals could one day be useful for powering small devices such as environmental sensors, Katz and his team are focused on developing biomedical applications. A similar system could be used in the human body to power implants such as pacemakers instead of having to rely on batteries with a limited lifespan. "The next step will include experiments mimicking the human blood stream with implanted bioelectrodes," says Katz. "This will be done with a model fluidic system."

If you enjoyed this post, watch a remote-controlled moth turn during flight or see how crossing a moth and a machine can help track odours.

Journal reference: Journal of the American Chemical Society, DOI: 10.1021/ja211714w

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