New
Delhi: Scientists at IIT Kharagpur have used waste onion
skins to develop an inexpensive device that can generate ‘green’ electricity
from body movements, and may power pacemakers, smart pills and wearable
electronics. The non-toxic, biodegradable and biocompatible device takes
advantage of the suitable piezoelectric properties of the onion skin,
researchers said.
Piezoelectric
materials have the ability to convert energy from everyday mechanical motions
into electricity.
“This homespun
inexpensive innovative finding can be a breakthrough scientific research in new
direction; even common people can generate energy in any circumstances using
this simple novel cost-effective idea,” Bhanu Bhusan Khatua, professor at
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur in West Bengal, said. Increasing
population, industrialisation, and ubiquitous use of electronics and vehicles
are playing a huge role in destroying the environment day by day.
The rising
burden on fossil fuels and depletion of natural resources has made the
development of sustainable and alternative green energy technologies a pressing
requirement in current energy deficiency world, researchers said.
Piezoelectric
materials can be used to convert simple body movements into green energy
without adding any pollution to our environments.
However,
piezoelectric nanogenerators are difficult to synthesise and are often very
expensive. They are also usually highly toxic or pose environmental hazards,
which means their use in real life application remains limited.
These drawbacks
prompted researchers at IIT Kharagpur and Pohang University of Science and
Technology in South Korea to develop a non-toxic, biodegradable and
biocompatible piezoelectric nanogenerator (BPNG).
Among various
cellulose containing bio-materials, onion skin is the most abundant bio-waste,
said Khatua.
Source: DNA-19th Decmber,2017
http://epaper2.dnaindia.com/index.php?pagedate=2017-12-19&edcode=820009&subcode=820009&mod=1&pgnum=2
