Enlarge (credit: Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia)
Can you tell me how many batteries you use in a year? A report from the University of Illinois reveals that Americans buy about 3 billion dry-cell batteries annually, which means that an average American ends up using nearly 10 batteries a year. Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise given that almost everything we use runs on batteries. What’s shocking is that out of these billions of batteries, about 2,500 end up in the stomachs of kids.
Almost every day, there are numerous cases of kids swallowing batteries that power their toys, watches, or gadgets; this results in many cases of internal injuries or stomach infections.
A team of researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Milan recently created a fully rechargeable battery using nontoxic edible components. This is probably the world’s first battery that is safe to ingest and entirely made of food-grade materials. “Given the level of safety of these batteries, they could be used in children's toys, where there is a high risk of ingestion,” said Mario Caironi, a senior researcher at IIT. However, this isn’t the only solution the edible battery could provide.
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