Blueprint for Building Human Power Generators

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October 10, 2018

Step on it and make your own energy. Scientists in the United Kingdom have explained how to do just that.

A group of scientists from the University of Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute have published a step-by-step guide for constructing a high-tech human-energy producer called a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). The idea of such a device is to capture kinetic energy from human movements and store it for future use, such as for powering devices that run on electricity.

The scientists said that a TENG could be used to capture energy from nonhuman sources, such as vibrations from wind or waves or even machines; it's the human-generated power that is perhaps the most prevalent, though, the scientists said. One simple and quite common place to install a TENG is in clothing. Simply by walking or waving her arms or otherwise just moving, a person could generate energy to be stored elsewhere. And, the scientists said, the faster the movement, the more power that is generated.

Constructing a TENG would require nothing more revolutionary than sheets of plastic, a few wires, and some fabric, such as cotton or silk, both of which make good triboelectric materials, the scientists said.

The idea of a TENG came about as a result of research in Japan in 2012, and research has continued. The Surry scientists' study is in the latest edition of the journal Advanced Energy Materials.

It's not just in the U.K. that such research is taking place. Scientists in many countries are working on such human power generation ideas and have been for several years. Back in 2010, engineers in France installed a series of specially designed paving slabs containing micro-sensors, so that when people walked on the slabs, the micro-sensors absorbed the energy created and stored it in a battery, for later transfer to the main power grid. That idea was based on an earlier template on a dance floor of a London nightclub.

In the same way, a Danish high-rise, also in 2010, offered its guests a chance to pedal specially equipped bicycles that would pump cyclist-generated electricity back into the hotel's power grid.

Also in the cycling vein, a Dutch town in 2015 opened the SolaRoad, a 70-meter-long path made of concrete that is dotted with silicon solar panels. More than 150,000 cyclists used the path in the first six month, engineers said.

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Social Studies for Kids
copyright 2002–2018
David White

Social Studies for Kids
copyright 2002–2019
David White