It’s long been known that the human body is capable of generating electricity. In The Matrix the concept is exploited to turn humans into batteries but in real life the technology wouldn’t be used for anything nearly as nefarious. Quite the contrary. Instead we may be able to use slight body movement to charge our smart phones. Outlets, docking stations, and charging cords need not apply.
As Futurism puts it, “We have a lot of devices these days, and they all need to be charged. Though there are now pads for wireless charging, these are still plugged into a power outlet. In many cases, the charging process has barely evolved at all in the past decade or more.
But now, researchers from the University at Buffalo and the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) might have developed the next step in this evolution, one that would no longer require plugging anything into a power socket. All it takes, according to their research recently published in the journal Nano Energy, is a special metallic tab and a little bit of body movement.
The secret is an effect called triboelectric charging, and it’s something that most people have actually seen — or felt — before. Triboelectric charging happens when a material becomes electrically charged after coming into frictional contact with another material.”
That’s right. If you’ve ever been shocked before then you know what’s at play here. Obviously further research will be needed before this proof of concept can be turned into a viable commercial product but the early returns are promising.
“As a demonstration in their study, the researchers used a metallic tab that’s only 1.5 cm (0.6 inches) long and 1 cm (0.4 inches) wide. The small tab generated 124 volts, with a maximum current and density that was enough to light 48 red LED lights at the same time.”
The next step for the researchers will be to develop a portable battery capable of capturing all of the energy generated by their tabs.
Is Triboelectric Power the Greatest Idea Ever?
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