Getting a charge out of a beating heart

(Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology)

Scientists have devised a way to use heartbeat and blood flow to generate electricity to charge military equipment, and maybe even your cell phone one day.

Low-frequency vibrations from any source of movement, including a heartbeat, blood flow and even the wind against your clothes, creates mechanical stress, which in turn produces electricity through the cyclical stretching and releasing of specially designed nano thin, zinc oxide wires, according to researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology.

The new nano-scale "flexible charge pump" generator produces alternating current. The greater the strain rate, the more electricity generated.

"Quite simply, this technology can be used to generate energy under any circumstances as long as there is movement." Zhong Lin Wang Regent's professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering and director of the Center for Nanostructure Characterization at the Georgia Tech said in an interview. This "research will have a major impact on defense technology, environmental monitoring, biomedical sciences and even personal electronics."

The nanowires are grown on a variety of materials and measure "about 1/5,000th of the diameter of a human hair and about 1/25th of the length of a human hair."

The technology, which was sponsored by DARPA, could be integrated into military clothing and used to power individual gear, such as radios and night vision goggles, Wang said. Multiple arrays of the generators could be embedded into flags, building decorations, shoes--or even implanted under the skin to power biosensors.

"Self-powered nanotechnology could be the basis for a new industry," he said.

[gsekse]

"flexible charge pump"... hmmm, could lead to a whole new pickup line:

"Hey baby, wanna go back to your place and reduce your electric bill?"

[tm_anon]

Wonder if this could be added in to asphalt while repaving roadways so they can be used to convert roadways into modified solar panels?

I know they wouldn't work exactly the same way, but asphalt stretches and contracts from day to night. That means the roadways would be generating electricity instead of just sitting there. Now add in all the cars driving back and forth on the roadway and that's even more energy created.

[mtdewcmu]

Power from human hearts? Sounds dangerously close to The Matrix.