Blinking digits that appear on the LCD screen (liquid crystal displays) usually indicate that it is necessary to adjust the clock of the device. However, in the laboratory at Georgia Tech University, the flickering literature on tiny displays actually points to the success of a multi-year effort to operate common electronic devices by nanogenerators that utilize mechanical energy derived from the environment using an array of thin nanowires.
In the case in question, the mechanical energy comes from pressing a nanogenerator located between two fingers, but it may also come from a heartbeat, the footsteps of a hiker on a trail, the waving of a shirt, or the vibration of a heavy machine. Although these nanogenerators will never produce enough electricity for normal purposes, they could be used to power nano- and micro-devices, and even recharge pacemakers and iPods.
Nanogenerators are based on the piezoelectric effect that occurs in crystalline materials such as zinc oxide, and in which a potential of electric charge is obtained when structures composed of such material are bent or pressed. By capturing and combining the charges from millions of wires of this zinc oxide, the researchers were able to produce an amount of three volts - as much as 300 nanoamperes.
"By simplifying our design so that it becomes more stable, and accumulating the contributions from even more nanowires, we were able to increase the output of our nanogenerators so that they can power commercial electrical devices such as LCD displays, light emitting diodes (LEDs), and laser diodes," said the researcher, a professor of materials science and engineering. "If we can maintain this rate of improvement, we can reach more practical applications in medical devices, personal electronic components or for environmental monitoring." Updated improvements in these nanogenerators, including a simpler manufacturing method, were reported in the scientific journal Nano Letters.
Earlier zinc oxide nanogenerators were composed of nanowires "grown" by a hard substrate and which reached a metal electrode. Later versions attached both ends of the nanowires to a polymer and produced electricity by simply bending them. Regardless of the final configuration, the devices require careful "growth" of nanowire arrays and their meticulous organization.
In their latest paper, the researchers reported simpler manufacturing methods. First, they grew arrays of a new type of nanowire that were shaped like a cone. These threads were uprooted from the substrate on which they grew and placed in a alcohol solution. This solution was dropped into a thin metal electrode and a sheet of flexible polymer layer. After the alcohol evaporated, a new layer was added. In this method, multiple layers of nanowire/polymer were stacked to obtain a composite material using a process that the lead researcher believes could become an industrial process.
When these nanowire "sandwiches", which are 2 cm in size, are bent, they are able to produce electricity in an amount sufficient to operate a pocket calculator display.
The lead researcher claims that nanogenerators are now close to producing enough electricity to independently power systems that can monitor the environment for toxic gases, for example, and then send out a warning signal. The system will include capacitors that can store the little charge until enough electricity is accumulated to send information out.
Although the output of the nanogenerators that exist today is still below the level required to operate devices such as iPods or pacemakers, the lead researcher believes that it will be possible to reach these levels within three to five years. Today's nanogenerators, the researcher points out, are almost a hundred times more powerful than those his group developed just a year ago.
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Cold fusion, as of today, is a big challenge, but as I already said in my comments - it is the most effective process for energy production that we know of.
And regarding your comment "not to try it on a computer" - then it sounds very much in the style of the opponents of the experiments being conducted in the LHC particle accelerator at CERN... of course we will try it on a computer! Where else do we have an option? 😛
The basis of your idea is actually the production of energy from the temperature of the material. It already has an application:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect
A very useful thing, you can also use it to heat/cool with an electrical source or vice versa -> turn heat back into an electrical source! And here's another idea, add it to solar collectors...
Also, I recommend that you look for material on a nuclear power plant and perhaps also on cold fusion - and I recommend that you do not try it on the Internet.
Oooh, a thoughtful response, thank you, I'll read again tomorrow because it requires effort!
From the wording of your response, I'm guessing that you don't think there's a real chance of getting anything..and if not, would you be willing to continue through the email?, and who knows, maybe, against all odds, some kind of brilliance will come or something that others missed will be discovered and it will be exactly what is needed!
Regarding the structure of the material.
Well, it's a bit complicated to explain... so we'll go with the classic method and pretend the atoms are balls (in different colors and sizes to differentiate between the elements). In gas then all the balls fly in every direction in a completely random way, collide with each other and scatter in all directions (of course one direction in each collision). In a liquid, so the nicest image I have is a ball pool where children are playing.
Now it's solid, here there are already certain structures in which the material tends to get along and the most basic are barva knits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravais_lattice). With them it will be easy for you to understand what is happening in the solid. But I must point out that things are usually more complicated in reality. Here is a source that can explain a little about the subject with demonstrations and pictures: http://departments.kings.edu/chemlab/animation/index.html
Now, regarding a cutting area and what happens in the language of the material in general, so here the theory of barva lattices (whose fundamental assumption that the lattice looks exactly the same and infinite in every direction you look from wherever you look inside the lattice) fails a bit. Obviously, because the language is not ideal, it will not be "perfectly smooth"; That is, you will not see a plain of "balls" if you look from the side, but hills and pits. And when you cut in any shape, nothing happens to the atoms and electrons. You can't break them apart (unless you do nuclear fission… which isn't the problem here).
Now regarding the electrons, here we already have to place our atoms back in place of the balls and they are actually there, around their atoms. The more connected move near their atom, the less connected move along the bonds they create on the neighboring atoms (sigma and pi bonds) and there are those who will travel throughout the lattice (along the chemical bonds I mentioned) - but as I said, the current created by one electron is canceled by another electron. You have to understand that the amount of atoms and electrons is huge, therefore, statistically 0 comes out.
Beyond that? The electrons will not exhibit any special behavior. Or what did you think/expect it to be?
The electric current is really carried by the free electrons, only they create the current when they move, and do not make a "bag of flour" for the electric charge. As I already said, the water in the pipe consists of water molecules that flow in a certain direction and create what you call a flow of water. Now imagine that your electric wire is a tube for the electrons, and they flow in a certain direction and create, in exactly the same way, the electric current.
An important point is that matter, when you look at it from the point of view of an electron, is literally empty. There is no Klooooom! What you feel as a solid and compressed piece of iron is the result of a low frustration resolution and the forces acting on the material, thus creating the stable and hard lattice.
The electric field (in question) is created by electric repulsion forces - if, for example, you place some electric charges at one end of a neutral conducting rod and nothing at the other end, then because there is less pressure of the electric field on the uncharged side, the charges will naturally prefer to work there and in the end to disperse homogeneously on the rod (and within the limits of the rod, because they cannot leave it).
The electric field works in the same way for both the free electrons and the bound electrons.
If we say you have a certain problem, and you would like to know the electric field in the system, then you can find it, for example, only from the charge distribution in space (if you have it).
Let me illustrate it to you like this: if you are an electron in the lattice, you mainly feel the fields of your immediate environment, and what is beyond your immediate environment is a background field, which to a good approximation is constant - and if it is constant and activated from any direction then it cancels out. Not really principled how we define the immediate environment... let's say these are the atoms closest to your atom and beyond that, it's already far.
So you, an electron, feel the electric field of the nucleus of your atom, of the electrons around your atom, and the fields of neighboring atoms (nuclei and electrons). It should be noted that there is a shielding* of the electric field, of the electrons and the nucleus from the neighboring atoms, and also in your atom - depending on the place of your inventions around it. But because these things are so small and literal, we will work with small disturbances in this almost neutral field…..
Now you understand how many factors you have for the electric field felt by a single electron in the lattice, and I was only talking about the electric field, when there are other factors...
The picture is complicated, as you can see (when you look at the problem in the above way), and it will get even more complicated if, for example, you expand the immediate environment - then you define it as one who solves the problem.
* Shielding - when the cloud of electrons around the nucleus creates a disturbance in the nuclear field, and actually weakens it, due to the opposite sign in their charges.
Again you hit on why I need a DP!
I refer to the article only in the context of my idea, and it is clear to me that the pressing or crushing of the nanogenerators is energy that they translate into electricity production... I am of course aiming at something else as I explained about all its strangeness and perhaps its impossibility but as mentioned I am only at the beginning and do not take myself seriously Abyssal but examines and examines and if there is something then I will make a serious effort!
Regarding your question, I studied building architecture and did not deal with it, but it affects my way of thinking, which means referring to a functional organization in the space of everything that exists in its static form. Not a museum, so the actual design will look different than planned!
It is relatively easy for me to imagine space and what is found in it, and in this context I began to think about the structure of matter and naturally ask whether the nuclei of matter are fixed in place? And what happens in the liquid state of the same substance? The nuclei of the matter certainly change position and yet the properties do not change.
And what happens when you cut the material, what happens to the electrons in the cutting area? Also what happens in front of the material in connection with the activity of the electrons?
These are my lines of thinking in general!
Spatial thinking in a framework created from the essence of things and then entering into the details if an interest arises, etc... The truth is that I was surprised by the fact that you wrote that the electron does not carry an electric charge on it but is itself the electric charge, and electric fields that move it, because I read that the electric current is driven by the free electron!
Basically you write that the free electrons move in all directions (I missed that) only that they cancel each other until the electric field creates a preferred direction of flow... So basically what I should have concentrated on is the image of the electric field (regardless of whether this is possible or not) regarding the electrons the free ones, and this means that I need to know the characteristics of the shape of the electric field ..and hence decide whether I continue to deal with it or continue on!!
So one more question DP, are there any characteristics to the electric field to which the free electrons react?
And thanks again for the answers directing me to the point itself!
I'm glad I could help. If you may be interested, architecture of what exactly?
And.. it appears from your words that you did not understand what an electron is... when you talk about an electric current, these are actually the electrons that move in the medium you are working with and they make up the current (just like water molecules that flow to you from the faucet when you turn it on). So you can't put a charge on the electrons because they already have a charge and it's unique and the same for all of them. You also can't create electric charges just like you can't create matter out of nothing (unless you have a lot of energy that can turn into matter... but that's not the issue, and even then you have mass-energy conservation). Therefore, if you want a material saturated with electrons (or there is also the opposite version, a material saturated with "holes", which are actually places where an electron is missing) - then it is a semiconductor, or just a metal with good conductivity where you have enough free electrons in the outer shells . In semiconductors there is freedom of materials (roughly), but you are not completely free in determining the "shape" and the materials.
What drives the electrons is an electric field, which you can create by voltage differences - and that actually gives the electrons their energy. Alternatively, you can give them energy through light, as I said in the previous response (which is still an electromagnetic field, only that they will not have a preferred direction of movement), and if you do nothing with them, then they will emit back the excess energy you gave them and return to their basic state.
As for free electrons, then they are always in motion, only that the motion is in all directions, so it turns out that all the electrons cancel the current that the others create. This is where the electric field that creates a preferred flow direction comes into play.
So ……. You cannot put an electric charge on the electron because it is itself the basic unit of charge (in this context).
What the article is about is that you do invest energy to generate current. Simply, instead of a certain part of the energy you invest in some action being lost, there are the nanogenerators that will (partially) convert the excess into something more useful.
Thanks for the response D.P, it's exactly what I wanted!
I come from the field of architecture and think accordingly, the initial thinking in the matter was to bypass the generator altogether and go straight to the result which is the electric charge! I thought that if I knew what the components of the electric charge were, I could create it inside the material by assembling it like a product is manufactured in a factory. inside the conductor or the material, but it turned out that, contrary to what I expected, the free electron can be at rest until it is moved and I need it in motion... I imagined (it's the cheapest) a nano structure in a suitable geometric shape through which the free electron will pass... where the electric charge will be mounted on it by materials different ones that will each produce the necessary part (assuming that the electric charge consists of several components and does not constitute a single unit) ..and so after the assembly is completed the electron came out on the other side carrying an electric charge on it!
From here I jumped to the electrons surrounding the nucleus of the atom also to understand how the business works, I saw some animated films on YouTube and from there came up some directions for conducting experiments, without which of course it's just talk.
The truth is that from the beginning I understood that it would be complicated to get into the material and place different components, but I thought that I determine which material and how many materials to use at each stage, I control the shape and thus I actually have a certain freedom of play before I raise my hands and leave the subject... What's more, I just started thinking in this direction This (something like half a year, when my dealing with the subject itself took no more than ten hours in total) so the whole business is fresh for me... I'm still in the exploration phase, so your comment was very suitable for me.
How exactly are you going to utilize the electron movements? The movement of the electron around the nucleus is not like what is usually shown on television, as if they are the satellites of the nucleus, but something much more like a wave (see orbitals, it is actually a question of the probability distribution functions of the electron's orbits around the nucleus - http://chemlinks.beloit.edu/Stars/images/orbitals.jpg). So in order to utilize their energy you need to have an interesting approach to the matter, to be able to access the related electrons... (so "how?" is an interesting question)
And an electric current is electrons that move in the lattice of your conductor... so if you want to give the electrons, which will make up the current, energy, you have to take it from the bound electrons (as you said) - and this will only be possible if your medium is in an excited state, otherwise (from Pauli's principle) no You will be able to do this (because the atom is already in its ground state - that is, at its minimum energy); The electrons will simply refuse to give you their energy.
So let's say you have a negative type semiconductor (n-typed), with "extra" electrons, and you excite your medium with a... laser? (Because devices in the solid state move according to the (differential) quantum levels of the electrons in the system and not otherwise.) So it turns out that you are still investing energy and we haven't achieved anything... which is actually quite similar to the photoelectric effect so there is nothing new here.
According to your idea, you want to "suck the soul" of the material to get energy, and you have to do it in a controlled way... I don't think it's possible, unless you have a shine?
And just to make it clear to you, the most efficient way to produce energy, which we know from nature is fusion - what happens in the cores of stars. So even there the energy is eventually consumed. There is no such thing as a top perfume, but you can get close to it...
I'm amazed by this article, I wrote here only about a month ago about my idea for developing a new energy source using nano generators because I couldn't find a suitable concept and thought I was delusional, and now others have been working on the matter for years hahahahaha!
The truth is that I take myself seriously, but the other day I came up with the idea of nano generators cast inside a material saturated with electrons from which they would generate electricity.. My problem was how to generate these nano generators, and here it turns out that you don't always have to reinvent the wheel, just check what's on the market!
My idea is to use the movement of the electron inside the material to produce an electric charge that will be transferred from the material to the outside by free electrons as in normal electricity, but the question is how do you get close to the electron that surrounds the nucleus? And how do you turn his movement into an electric charge!
In my case, it is intended to be used at the end of the process (probably some 20 years if at all) to drive vehicles with an inexhaustible source of energy and, of course, on the way also battery operated devices!
On my own there is no chance that I will be able to move it further, but now it starts to sound to me in the realm of the possible and practical and it is worth thinking about experiments, !!
By the way, whoever is interested in this and has something to contribute to the idea is welcome to comment here