http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/22/nano.technology.energy/index.html
This article is about a group of leading nanotechnology researchers who are developing cleaner and more efficient ways of delivering electrical power. The researchers are working towards a way to harness the energy that is created from the body’s natural movements, and transferring this energy to a small device (such as a cell phone). One thing that really surprised me is that they may be able to use the energy used from texting (the movement of your fingers) and transfer it into electricity for your cell phone. Knowing how much people text these days, this could be extremely beneficial. I believe that there would be an incredibly high demand for this technology. To explain why I say this, one example comes to mind: the annoyance of your cell phone dying. Not only does this ruin someone’s day, but it could also be dangerous (a person could have a crisis but not be able to reach anyone). I think that if these nanotechnology researchers are successful in creating an easy to use, mainstream set-up for a cell phone that uses this technology, then they will make a lot of money.
If you were wondering, this is the science behind it:
“Wang’s team makes use of the piezoelectric effect, which refers to the ability of certain materials to generate an electric potential when a stress is applied to them. For instance, if you compress a crystal, it temporarily changes shape, causing the ions inside the crystal to polarize and produce a voltage drop. That potential can drive a transient flow of external electrons to function as an energy output.”
Below, researcher Zhong Lin Wang conducts a test where a hamster generates energy with nanowires.
