Synthetic cells shed biological insights while delivering battery power

Image of two artificial cells that can act as a tiny battery. Each cell has a droplet of a water-based solution containing a salt -- potassium and chloride ions -- enclosed within a lipid wall. If the solutions in the two cells start with different salt concentrations, then poking thin metal electrodes into the droplets creates a small electric battery.

Trying to understand the complex workings of a biological cell by teasing out the function of every molecule within it is a daunting task. But by making synthetic cells that include just a few chemical processes, researchers can study cellular machinery one manageable piece at a time. A new paper* from researchers at Yale University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) describes a highly simplified model cell that not only sheds light on the way certain real cells generate electric voltages, but also acts as a tiny battery that could offer a practical alternative to conventional solid-state energy-generating devices.

Each synthetic cell built by NIST engineer David LaVan and his colleagues has a droplet of a water-based solution containing a salt—potassium and chloride ions—enclosed within a wall made of a lipid, a molecule with one end that is attracted to water molecules while the other end repels them. When two of these "cells" come into contact, the water-repelling lipid ends that form their outsides touch, creating a stable double bilayer that separates the two cells' interiors, just as actual cell membranes do.

... A tiny battery with two droplets, each containing just 200 nanoliters of solution, could deliver electricity for almost 10 minutes. A bigger system, with a total volume of almost 11 microliters, lasted more than four hours.

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