Science Daily is rubbing their hands (and stomping their feet) over new breakthroughs in harnessing your everyday movements to power up your batteries:
…[Georgia Institute of Technology professor Zhong Lin] Wang then developed the first triboelectric nanogenerator, or “TENG.” He paired two sheets of different materials together — one donates electrons, and the other accepts them. When the sheets touch, electrons flow from one to the other. When the sheets are separated, a voltage develops between them.
Since his lab’s first publication on TENG in 2012, they have since boosted the power output density by a factor of 100,000, with the output power density reaching 300 Watts per square meter. Now with one stomp of his foot, Wang can light up a sheet with a thousand LED bulbs.
His group has incorporated TENG into shoe insoles, whistles, foot pedals, floor mats, backpacks and ocean buoys for a variety of potential applications. These gadgets harness the power of everyday motion from the minute (think vibrations, rubbing, stepping) to the global and endless (waves).
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Researchers could use the technology to tap into the endless energy of ocean waves, rain drops and the wind all around us — with tiny generators rather than towering turbines — to help feed the world’s ever-growing energy demand, he said.