It's possible that in the future your voice conversations on your cell phone could generate enough electrical power to run the phone, without batteries.
And not just phones. The technology, which converts mechanical stress like vibrations into electrical energy, could power a whole range of low-power mobile devices and sensors.
That's one possible outcome of recent work by a team of Texas researchers, who appear to have discovered that by building a certain type of piezoelectric material to a specific thickness (about 21 nanometers, compared to a typical human hair of 100,000 nanometers), you can boost its energy production by 100 percent.
The research, by scientists from Texas A&M University and University of Houston, is reported in Science Daily.
Mobile devices and wireless sensors rely on batteries, and most of today's battery technologies are relatively heavy and expensive, and take up a chunk of valuable real estate. So-called "energy harvesting" technologies can convert one kind of energy, such as vibrations or solar rays, into electricity.
GreenPeak, a wireless sensor startup, unveiled in 2007 a line of products designed with interfaces to various types of commercially available energy harvesters, eliminating the need for batteries in what could be tens of thousands of nodes in a sensor network.
But the new research deals with a scale of energy harvesting hardly contemplated before, a scale measured in billionths of a meter.
When the energy-converting material was constructed to be either smaller or larger than the 20-23 nanometer range, its power output decreased significantly, according to Tahir Cagin, a professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University.
Piezoelectrics are typically crystals or ceramics that can generate voltage when subjected to mechanical stress. The Science Daily story says this was first discovered in the 1880s by French scientists and has been used in a variety of applications ever since, including in-vehicle cigarette lighters.
But Cagin's research brings piezoelectrics down to the nanoscale dimension, causing dramatic changes in performance characteristics, in part (from what I can tell) because such thin materials are very sensitive to mechanical stress, such as that caused by vibrations created by a voice.
He's not alone. Zhong Lin Wang, a professor and nanotechnology researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has been experimenting with pairs of cloth fibers covered with zinc oxide nanowires. Woven into a shirt, the fibers could use the wearer's body movements to power portable devices. Wang noted that millions of these fiber pairs, each about one centimeter long, would be have to be woven into about 9 square feet of fabric (which would make for a shirt the size of really big poncho)to power an iPod.
Cagin's research might change that ratio. A component built with optimally sized piezoelectric for maximum energy conversion could potentially run a cell phone based on vibrations from your voice, or other mobile devices, perhaps based on motion or typing on a keypad.
As Science Daily points out, "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has investigated methods for soldiers in the field to generate power for their portable equipment through the energy harvested from simply walking. And sensors – such as those used to detect explosives – could greatly benefit from a self-powering technology that would reduce the need for the testing and replacing of batteries."
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This is interesting, but I'm
This is interesting, but I'm only posting a comment because I don't understand the captcha and I want to make sure I'm still a human.
And then?
Of course, one of the best ways to utilize this technology would be in combination with a battery or nano-scale super capacitor, which would provide power evenly and reliably, whether the user is talking or not. The piezoelectrics could then be used to vastly improve the life of the installed battery or capacitor, without having to completely power the phone at all times.
Indeed
As long as they can get the flux capasitor to initialize properly with the piezoelectrics there should be no problem getting the Gyroids to fuse and propogate the energy into the Hadrigenator. When this conection is made, the didatiator will force energy there and the philibusters will contain the energy for maximum performance. It's a beautiful thing.
The next bubble
Doesn't this sound easy enough to understand that it has the potential to change the world?
In fact, I bet, if you were to invest a few thousand dollars into this technology, within 10 years, you would be a millionaire!
Harvesting is one of those ideas that sort of breaks Newtons 2nd Law. I guess when you do it with a human, the extra food you have to eat doesn't count?!
Harvesting
I have one question, a crystal of 21 nanometers thickness would be extremely fragile. I understand that if you use it as a skin or sandwich it between some thicker materials you would still get some vibration but wouldn't that greatly affect the efficiency?
I would think that the
I would think that the encasing material could be bonded to the crystal so that they all move as a single item while still extracting the energy and not losing efficiency. I'm thinking along the lines of piezo-electric high-frequency drivers used in car audio and low grade professional audio cabinets.
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