Georgia Tech’s Nanogenerator Demonstrated To Be Commercially Feasible and Ultra Cool

We’ve been tracking Professor Zhong Lin Wang’s flexible nanogenerator here on Medgadget for quite some time now. In case you forgot, Wang, a professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, created the nanogenerator, a flexible chip with millions of tiny piezoelectric wires that can use body movements to generate electricity.
This week at the National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, California, Wang announced that his team had succeeded in boosting the device’s power output so that it is commercially viable. They claim that the nanogenerator is now powerful enough to drive commercial LCDs, LEDs, laser diodes, and can power a sensor and transmit its signal wirelessly. According to Wang, the output of five nanogenerators stacked together is approximately 1 micro Ampere current at 3 volts, about the same voltage generated by two regular AA batteries.
Wang’s team demonstrated their nanogenerator during the meeting by squeezing the nanogenerator between two fingers to power an LED light and a liquid crystal display.
Potential consumer applications include personal electronics devices powered by footsteps that activate nanogenerators inside the sole of a shoe and implanted insulin pumps powered by a heart beat.
Link: First practical nanogenerator produces electricity with pinch of the fingers…
Previously on Medgadget: Nanogenerator to Power Nanoscale Devices, Implantable Medgadgets; Nanogenerator Converts Body’s Energy into DC Output; Flexible Nanogenerators to Power Implantable Microdevices