Scientists Turn Damaged Tomatoes Into Source of Energy

Better think twice before throwing rotten tomatoes out of a fridge, because turns out they could be used to generate electricity, a team of scientists from a US university found out.

Now calm down and take your iPhone charger out of rotten vegetables, the process of generating enough electricity from damaged tomatoes to replace existing sources of electricity will certainly take some time.

Scientists from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology developed a microbial electrochemical cell that can turn substances found in tomato waste into electric current.

"Microbial electrochemical cells use bacteria to break down and oxidize organic material in defective tomatoes," said Dr. Namita Shrestha, an assistant professor working on the project, according to the International Business Times (IBT).

The power output from the device is still small: 10 mg of tomato waste can result in 0.3 watts of electricity. However, researchers promised they're expecting to do more research to increase electrical output. They're confident that they'd be able scale-up the technology.

Dr. Shrestha said with more work and optimized biological fuel cell, it would be possible to power up Walt Disney World in Orlando with the annual tomato waste generated in the state of Florida.

Now considering that Florida alone produces almost 400,000 tons of tomato waste every year a lot of electricity can be produced from it — probably enough to power entire neighborhoods for long period of time.