Electric Rays & Eels: Electricity Storage & Conversion

[Stanley514]

Electric rays and eels are able to produce lot of electricity.
I wasn`t able to understand if their way to store electricity
is closer to battery or capacitor or neither?
Could it be regarded as electric energy storage similar to battery or
capacitor or this is just energy conversion method in which power of
muscles is used to produce charge separation?

 

[torquil]

I believe it is described in enough detail here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_eel"

 

[Stanley514]

I still do not see a similarity to classical battery because battery depends on reaction of reducer with oxidizer but electric fish organs on some ``charge release``.
Is it possible to create something artificial similar to electric organs?They seem to have excelent energy and power density and no rare metals are involved?

 

[Rebooter]

I still do not see a similarity to classical battery because battery depends on reaction of reducer with oxidizer but electric fish organs on some ``charge release``.
Is it possible to create something artificial similar to electric organs?They seem to have excelent energy and power density and no rare metals are involved?

70 W·h/kg energy density of a Ni-MH battery

500V*1A (max recorded from an electric eel) = 500W... 0.14 W*h
So for the organ to have similar power density as a Ni-MH it would need to weigh 0.002kg... a fish capable of producing that much power needs to be about 1 meter long and about 10-20kg

I cannot find how much the organ weighs in such a fish (or even the percent of its body mass) but it would need to be around 0.02% of its body mass to have the same energy density as Ni-MH

 

[torquil]

Some more details here, if you have not seen it:

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2001/riis/electriceel3.htm"

Those organs generating the electricity make up a very large part of the eel.

 

[daumphys]

Some fish use this kind of organs for communication.