14 DAY TRIAL // In the past few years, researchers have been trying to bring the goal of personal electricity generation closer and closer to reality. What they are essentially trying to do is reduce the strain that personal, portable electronic devices place on the world's electric grid. Despite its already-massive levels, this strain is estimated to increase considerably in the future, as the numbers of those buying these devices increases. But now scientists may have found a solution to this problem.
According to Technology Review, experts at the Princeton University have recently announced the creation of an innovative, flexible material, that is capable of producing a great deal of electric charges when pressure is applied on it. The possible applications for this discovery are virtually limitless, the team behind it says. One could use the devices to produce energy from harvesting the motion of walking. People would get non-stop battery life for their mp3 players and mobile phones, as all they would have to do would be to walk and recharge.
But beyond mere functionality boosts, the new system could additionally be used to power up implants such as pacemakers, which currently run on batteries. Swaths of the new materials, placed in their correct positions around an implant, could harness for example the energy that comes from a person's breath to produce electricity, and in turn send it to the pacemaker. And given that we generally tend to breathe our entire life, it stands to reason that the source of raw energy will not go away.
The new material is based on several, alternating layers of the piezoelectric material PZT and silicone. Piezoelectrics are known for their amazing ability to produce an electric charge when placed under strain, and this is precisely what happens with PU's new flexible material. The thing about this particular device is that it can convert more than 80 percent of the stress being applied to it into energy.
This is a rate that is four times higher than that recorded by any other type of piezoelectric material in the world. “If you have a sensor that monitors heart-rate, brain activity, or blood pressure, or an implantable insulin injection system, you need a battery,” University of Michigan Professor of Surgery and Biomedical Engineering Jim Grotberg sums it up.