Wow! Isn't it Amazing!
Charging your phones with just few shakes or so. :)
Confused????
Ok! let me explain:- If a bunch of ingenious researchers are to be believed, the day isn't far when most of your gadgets would be powered by nanogenerators- tiny zinc oxide wires that possess piezoelectric properties.
If that went over your head, let us explain. Piezoelectric properties point toward the capability of an object to generate electricity (albeit tiny amounts of them, at least for now) when the object is bent, stretched or when subject to any physical or mechanical stress.
In short, with this capability added, any object that can "move" can be made capable of drawing power from the movement itself. The nano wires used to power these future gadgets possess the aforementioned piezoelectric abilities and are not only very small in size but also very thin. Each nanowire is 25 times thinner than a human hair!
The lead researcher behind this project, Zhong Lin Wang, believes that the device can be in the future used to power cellphones and gadgets. Imagine, being able to charge your phone by merely moving it or shaking it? Even though these might sound farfetched now, a few years down the line, this might just become routine.
Apart from their use in charging gadgets, nanogenerators could be used in defense technology and biomedical sciences. Wang also demonstrated a video in which a single nanowire attached to a hamster managed to create 70 millivolts (.07 volts) of electricity.
Although this might sound too insignificant now, the team has managed to generate up to 0.2 volts of electricity, and with further improvements expected, the figure is sure to go up. Just to put things into perspective, a USB powered device uses about 5 volts of electricity. So I guess we still have a long way to go.
Source: Techtree
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