Sony Turns Paper Into a Power Source December 29, 2011 11:12 by Mike Derges

Engineers at Sony have been working on some new technology aimed at not only finding a use for waste paper from your old print outs but actually using it to power electronic devices!

As with some of the best innovations the idea is similar to one found in nature. Ants and termites digest wood and other plant matter, converting it into sugars which can then be easily used for energy.

In a similar way Sony's team have developed a solution containing cellulase enzymes  which turns shredded paper into glucose sugar. This glucose is then used in a process involving a further mixture of enzymes in the presence of oxygen to create energy.

The only waste products caused by this chain of reactions were plain old water and gluconic acid (while that may sound quite scary it's actually a harmless acid that commonly occours in nature) so the process is quite clean compared to the other method of getting energy from paper - fire.

In a demonstration children were asked to dip paper and cardboard into a solution then shake it. After a few minutes a connected fan started turning showing that electricity was being generated.

Obviously the project has some major appeal. With the rising costs of fuel, turning wasted paper and card into energy could really help households. Sadly though this technology a long way from commercial deployment and it's not yet viable for powering much more than an mp3 player.

Environmental groups have praised Sony for working in this area with John Sauven from Greenpeace saying that:  "Any way to provide a greener technology could be a potential magic bullet. So from that point of view this is interesting, and I think it's fantastic that companies like Sony are looking to make the generation of energy more environmentally friendly."

Still developments in this area are always interesting and we'll keep you informed if we hear anything new.