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1 .This is Scientific American 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber. Got a minute?
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2 .They're called button cells, coin cells or watch batteries.
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3 .By any name, these tiny, round batteries pose a choking danger to small kids.
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4 .And if a child succeeds in swallowing a button cell, the battery may short-circuit in the moist esophageal environment, burning the tissue.
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5 .A few thousand kids wind up in emergency rooms each year after swallowing a button battery.
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6 .But a team of Harvard and M.I.T.researchers that includes prolific inventor Robert Langer thinks they have a partial solution: a protective coating.
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7 .The scientists covered batteries with a material, technically a quantum-tunneling composite,
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8 .in which microparticles of conductive metal are suspended in an insulating layer.
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9 .Under most circumstances, including inside of a child, the layer is nonconductive.
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10 .But when the material is subjected to high pressure, the microparticles are squeezed close enough together to carry a current.
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11 .One such pressurized environment is the typical battery compartment in a small device, you often have to force the battery into place.
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12 .So the same battery that remains inert when swallowed works just fine when it's jammed into its slot in a hearing aid.
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13 .The waterproof design would also protect batteries from corrosion in high humidity.
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14 .The research is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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15 .Tests with pigs found the coated batteries to be gentle on the porcine esophagus.
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16 .Next step: figure out a way to keep kids from putting the batteries in their mouths in the first place.
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17 .Can a quantum tunneling composite be made to taste terrible?
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18 .Thanks for the minute, for Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Cynthia Graber.
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