I just discovered this fabulous website:
www.alternative-energy-news.info
Two articles immediately caught my eye.
1. Forget Solar Power, Human Power is the Future of Alternative Energy
That may be a little aggressive, but Princeton University engineers have developed a device that may change the way that we power many of our smaller gadgets and devices. They’ve created a small chip that will actually capture and harness the energy of our natural body movement, providing enough energy to power up things such as cell phones, pacemakers and many other small electronic devices.
The chip is actually a combination of rubber and ceramic nanoribbons. When the chip is flexed, it generates electrical energy. How will this be put to use? Think of rubber soled shoes that have this chip embedded into them and every time a step is taken, energy is created and stored. Just the normal walking around inside the office during a normal work day would be enough to keep that cell phone powered every day.
An application that has pacemaker users excited is the fact that this chip could be placed in proximity of the lungs and it would create natural power for their pacemakers. Currently, the only way to replace the battery is to go through another surgery, but the natural motion of the lungs would create enough movement to continuously power the device via this chip. Finally, only one surgery would be needed and unless there was actually a problem with the pacemaker itself, there would no longer be the need to go under the knife again.
This technology is an incredible development in that it can have so many different applications. The engineers at Princeton were able to combine the materials in a way that created an electric charge when pressure is applied to the chip. It actually converts about 80% of the mechanical energy into electrical energy. In the case of the pacemaker, this means a constant power source as the lungs would obviously continuously apply the pressure that was needed to create the energy.
Additionally, the new power chip is pretty much ready to go in regards to being an implant device. Because of the materials that it is made up of, the body should readily accept it without fear of rejection. When we think of how many varieties of medical devices that are available and require power sources, this is a truly amazing invention.
While it would appear that the technology itself is very futuristic, once it is able to be mass produced, it is probably reasonable to assume that the chips will not actually be all that expensive because of the materials that are being used in its construction. They may be a bit pricey when they first hit the market, but as they become more widely used and available, that price tag should come down.
Similar technology has already been introduced in other products, but nothing that has the flexibility of this product. Human power is nothing new, but to be able to have medical devices implanted that require nothing more than normal breathing or walking is quite amazing.
2. Harvesting Ambient Energy From Nature
We all know that energy can neither be created nor be destroyed but can only be transformed into one form to another. Duke University engineers are trying to utilize this simple formula. They are working on harvesting energy from the motions of everyday life. Normally our everyday motions get wasted and remain unused and dissipate in the form of heat without our realization. Energy harvesting strategies cover the installation of colossal wind farms to manufacture large amounts of electricity to using the vibrations of walking to power small electronic devices.
We have not estimated the exact amount of energy generated by random movements of our daily life. But it is indisputable that the trapped day-to-day motions can be a source of huge energy. But right now only limited success has been achieved because the devices used perform well only over a narrow band of frequencies. These devices have certain limitations. They perform well only when forces of motions are fairly constant. If we take an example of walking it is clear that we can’t walk at a constant pace. There are some external environmental forces working. So accordingly our pace of walking changes and varies too.
Samuel Stanton, who is a graduate student in Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering, and working in the laboratory of Brian Mann, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials sciences, says, “The ideal device would be one that could convert a range of vibrations instead of just a narrow band. Nature doesn’t work in a single frequency, so we wanted to come up with a device that would work over a broad range of frequencies. By using magnets to ‘tune’ the bandwidth of the experimental device, we were able verify in the lab that this new non-linear approach can outperform conventional linear devices.”
Their device looks quite simple in appearance. But it is sufficient to prove their theory and mode of working. The device is mainly a small cantilever. This cantilever is many inches long and a quarter inch wide. It also has an end magnet that interacts with nearby magnets. The cantilever base consists of a piezoelectric material. This piezoelectric material has the exceptional property of releasing electrical voltage when it is strained.
They devised a means to place movable magnets of opposing poles on either side of the magnet at the end of the cantilever arm. This arrangement is important because by changing the distance of the movable magnets, they were able to “tune” the interactions of the system with its environment. This tuning will help in trapping and producing electricity over an erratic range of frequencies which is of normal occurrence of daily life.
The range of applications for non-linear energy harvesters is only restrained by our imagination! Mann is aiming to achieve how to use the motion of ocean waves to power an array of sensors that would be carried inside ocean buoys. Mann shares the benefits with us, “These results suggest to us that this non-linear approach could harvest more of the frequencies from the same ambient vibrations. More importantly, being able to capture more of the bandwidth makes it more likely that these types of devices could someday rival batteries as a portable power source.”
Mann is of the view, “These non-linear systems are self-sustaining, so they are ideal for any electrical device that needs batteries and is in a location that is difficult to access.” If we go by the example of our walking, the motion of walking is sufficient to provide enough electricity to operate an implanted device, such as a pacemaker or cardiac defibrillator. If we take some bigger example we can observe, scale, sensors in the environment or spacecraft could be power-driven by the everyday natural vibrations around them.
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