TOM KRUPENKIN: “We humans are actually very powerful machines.”
Artist's rendering of a shoe embedded with components that collect and store power to run mobile devices.
BOB DOUGHTY: Professor Krupenkin and his team have placed a device in a shoe that collects and stores energy from human motion and turns it into electricity. One part of this device is an energy harvester. It has two small containers filled with thousands of very small drops of liquid. These droplets get pushed back and forth as a person walks.
TOM KRUPENKIN: “So it is essentially a flow of a fluid through flexible plastic tubes with embedded electrodes which are covered by a special material that we invented. These actually directly convert it into electric power. Now, output of this energy is stored in a regular rechargeable tiny battery of the style that we have in cell phones.”
BOB DOUGHTY: The team has also developed a system to permit use of the stored energy by common mobile devices. It does not require connections with wires, and can be used to create a wireless signal. A cell phone that uses the wireless “hotspot” from the shoe would use much less power than if connected to a wireless telephone network.
The devices are about the size of a credit card. Professor Krupenkin says the system is always powered. So unlike a traditional battery, this energy harvester never needs to be recharged.
The professor says he does not expect this invention to replace traditional batteries. But it will help reduce dependence on them. He says there are a huge number of possible uses for this technology. Professor Krupenkin thinks the technology would be useful for people in rural areas where there is no electrical power.
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25