Zhong Lin Wang/Georgia Tech Photo
(NHI Nanoblog) Always looking for a place to plug in that smartphone? A new “nanogenerator” introduced this week might one day let you charge up as you walk around.
Scientists at Georgia Tech spent six years developing the tiny generator, pictured above. Just flexing the pliable chip converts your physical energy into electricity, said Zhong Lin Wang, a professor and the director of the Center for Nanostructure Characterization at Georgia Tech.
Wang presented his team’s work at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting. At a brief press conference, Wang said the generator alone doesn’t put out much energy. But stacked together — the device uses zinc oxide nanowires — the potential is great, he said (you can watch the whole press conference here).
Someday, Wang said, the technology will be advanced enough that “if we put this in our our shoes, we walk for 30 minutes, and then you can charge your cellphone, charge your portable electronics.”
Nanotechnology leverages super-small particles (a nanometer is a billionth of a meter) to create products with amazing properties. These materials can make bike frames lighter and stronger and sunscreen more transparent on the skin, as well as new medical instruments and medicines that can save lives.
There is broad agreement that nanomaterials hold great promise for a wide variety of applications. But shrinking these substances can change their properties, and scientists are struggling to figure out whether, how and why that shift can make them dangerous in the process.
Wang said the zinc oxide nanowires are relatively benign, and certainly far less harmful than other materials.
Someday, he said, the generator could be placed atop a cellphone, or in an electric car’s tires, to generate energy as the car is moving. Scientists might even be able to harness the energy of a human pulse to produce power, by placing the generator on the skin near a throbbing vein. There are loads of potential uses, he said, from sensors to defense applications.
“Any physical motion can be harvested,” Wang said.