POWER OF THE PINCH

A new invention is taking place. Now we would be able to draw power from being squeezed between two fingers, Thanks to nanotechnology. Nanogenerators are poised to change lives in future. US scientist have developed the first commercially viable nanogenerator, a flexible chip that can use body movements- a finger pinch now enroute to a pulse beat in the future- to generate electricity. This development is stepping stone towards developing portable electronics that could be run by body movements without the help of batteries. Nanogenerator have designed powerfull enough to drive commercial liquid crystals displays, light emitting diodes and laser diodes. Storing a generated charges in the capacitor, the output power is capable to periodically drive a sensor and transmitting the signal without using wires. The nanogenerator may find a broad range of other applications that require more power. Few examples where nanogenerator can be used

-          Electronics device powered by footsteps activating nanogenerator inside the sole of the shoe

-          Implanted insulin pumps powered by a heart beat

-          Environment sensors powered by nanogenerators flapping in the breeze

Zhong Lin Wang, the lead scientist of this invention at Georgia Tech., demonstrated along with the colleagues that commercial feasibility of the latest nanogenerater by using it to power an LED light and a liquid crystal display like those widely used in many devices, such as calculators and computers. The power came from squeezing nanogenerators between two fingers.

HOW IT WORKS

The key to the technology is zinc oxide (ZnO)  Nanowires. ZnO nanowires are piezoelectric- i.ethey can generate power an electric current when strained or flexed. That movements can be virtually any body movements such as walking, a heartbeat, or blood flowing through the body.
The nanowires can generate electricity in response to wind, rolling tires or mwnse to wind, rolling tires or many other kinds of movement. The diameter of ZnO nanowires is so small that 500 of nanowires can fit inside the width of a single human hair. Wang’s group found a way to capture and combine the electrical charges from millions of nanoscales zinc oxide wires. They also developed an efficient way to developed an efficient way to deposit the nanowires onto flexible polymer chips, each about a quarter the size of postage stamp. Five nanogenerators stacked together produce about the power of two AA batteries (about 3 volts). Additional nanowires and more nanogenerator stacked together could produce enough energy for powering larger electronics, such as ipods or a cellphones.

Phone will soon need charging just once a month

Technophiles who have been dreaming of mobile devices that run longer on lighter, slimmer batteries may soon find their wish list has been granted. University of Illinois engineers have developed a form of ultralow power digital memory that is faster and uses 100 times less energy than anything else available. The technology could give future portable devices much longer battery life between charges.

Led by Professor Eric Pop, the team will publish its results in an upcoming issue of Science. Anyone who is dealing with a lot of chargers and plugging things in every night can relate to wanting a cell phone or laptop whose batteries can last for weeks or months.

The flash memory used in mobile devices today stores bits as charge, which requires high voltages to operate and is rather slow. The team lowered the power per bit to 100 times less than existing flash memory by focusing on one simple yet key factor size. Rather than the metal wires standard in industry the group used carbon Nanotubes, tiny tubes only few nanometers in diameter 10000 times smaller than a human air. The energy consumption is essentially scaled with volume of memory bit. By using Nanoscale contacts it is possible to achieve much smaller power consumption. Carbon nanotubes are the smallest known electronic conductors. They are better than any metal at delivering a little jolt of electricity to zap the flash memory bit.
Nanotubes also boast an extraordinary stability as they are not susceptible to the degradation that can plague metal wires. In addition they are immune to accident erasure from a passing scanner or magnet.
The new flash memory chip could be used in existing devices allowing for a significant increase in battery life. Right now a smart phone uses about a watt of energy and laptop runs on more than 25 watts. Some of that energy goes to the display, but an increasing percentage is dedicated to memory.

Along with improvements in display technology the nanotube PCM memory could increase an iphones energy efficiency so it could run for a longer than on a smaller battery, or even to the point where it could run simply by harvesting its own thermal, mechanical or solar energy- no battery required.

We are not just talking about lightening our purse or pockets. This is also important for anything that runs on battery, such as satellites, telecommunications equipment or any number of scientific and military applications.