We charge Lumia with the power of sound
Imagine that fans' chants during a football match or, for example, the chaos of sounds at a huge music festival can serve a good purpose - to replenish the charge of your mobile device.
After our last experimental project, in which we were able to recharge the smartphone with a lightning bolt, we decided to go ahead and conquer the sound. Read about what came out of this in our Friday post.
In our new experiment, we teamed up with doctors Joe Briscoe and Steve Dunn from Queen Mary University of London (yes, these are British scientists, no, they are real) in order to create a prototype mobile nanogenerator that used would have background noise (sound of traffic, music or our own voices) for charging mobile devices.
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We had to work a lot with materials that are a thousand times thinner than ordinary human hair. For many, it is no secret that, with such dimensions, they can have rather unusual properties — for example, change color, strength, or become more chemically active. Nanomaterials are also more suitable for converting the energy of motion or vibration into electricity - and this is exactly the quality that we need when working with sound.
That is why the main component of our nanogenerator has become zinc oxide - a piezoelectric material, which has a special crystalline structure, the stretching or compression of which leads to the appearance of an electrical voltage.
This property is familiar to many of you - it is used in lighter-free lighters (pressing the button with a piezoelectric element leads to the creation of a spark, which ignites the gas). We used the same principle, but only to create a device that can charge the phone battery.
It should be noted that we turned to Briscoe and Dunn not by chance - they have extensive expertise in the field of nanomaterials and their application in the energy sector, and in the past few years they have been actively studying the properties of zinc oxide. We were so inspired by their ideas that we could not miss the chance to conduct a joint experiment.
Within the framework of the project, nanorods or nanowires were created from zinc oxide, which later could be applied to almost any surface. Upon deformation or bending of such a surface, the nanorods generate high voltage. Greater sensitivity will allow such plates to respond to vibrations from any sound waves, even from the voice. It only remained to enclose the nanotubes in one electrical circuit, and we were ready to get a new type of chargers.
To create a prototype nanogenerator, the team developed a special technical process that allows spraying a layer of zinc oxide nanotubes onto a plastic surface. Then, the resulting sheet was heated to 90 ° C, so that the nanorods were evenly distributed over the surface.
Also, when working on a nanogenerator, Joe and Steve suggested a method using cheap aluminum foil as an alternative to gold conductors.
As a result of the experiment, we got a device that can generate up to 5 volts, which is quite enough to charge the smartphone. Another advantage is its dimensions: in length and width it is equal to our smartphone Lumia 925.
Of course, at the moment it is only a prototype, but he was able to bring the future a little closer, in which we don’t have to look for a charger to charge our smartphone. It will be enough to yell at him.
After our last experimental project, in which we were able to recharge the smartphone with a lightning bolt, we decided to go ahead and conquer the sound. Read about what came out of this in our Friday post.
In our new experiment, we teamed up with doctors Joe Briscoe and Steve Dunn from Queen Mary University of London (yes, these are British scientists, no, they are real) in order to create a prototype mobile nanogenerator that used would have background noise (sound of traffic, music or our own voices) for charging mobile devices.
')
We had to work a lot with materials that are a thousand times thinner than ordinary human hair. For many, it is no secret that, with such dimensions, they can have rather unusual properties — for example, change color, strength, or become more chemically active. Nanomaterials are also more suitable for converting the energy of motion or vibration into electricity - and this is exactly the quality that we need when working with sound.
That is why the main component of our nanogenerator has become zinc oxide - a piezoelectric material, which has a special crystalline structure, the stretching or compression of which leads to the appearance of an electrical voltage.
This property is familiar to many of you - it is used in lighter-free lighters (pressing the button with a piezoelectric element leads to the creation of a spark, which ignites the gas). We used the same principle, but only to create a device that can charge the phone battery.
It should be noted that we turned to Briscoe and Dunn not by chance - they have extensive expertise in the field of nanomaterials and their application in the energy sector, and in the past few years they have been actively studying the properties of zinc oxide. We were so inspired by their ideas that we could not miss the chance to conduct a joint experiment.
Within the framework of the project, nanorods or nanowires were created from zinc oxide, which later could be applied to almost any surface. Upon deformation or bending of such a surface, the nanorods generate high voltage. Greater sensitivity will allow such plates to respond to vibrations from any sound waves, even from the voice. It only remained to enclose the nanotubes in one electrical circuit, and we were ready to get a new type of chargers.
To create a prototype nanogenerator, the team developed a special technical process that allows spraying a layer of zinc oxide nanotubes onto a plastic surface. Then, the resulting sheet was heated to 90 ° C, so that the nanorods were evenly distributed over the surface.
Also, when working on a nanogenerator, Joe and Steve suggested a method using cheap aluminum foil as an alternative to gold conductors.
As a result of the experiment, we got a device that can generate up to 5 volts, which is quite enough to charge the smartphone. Another advantage is its dimensions: in length and width it is equal to our smartphone Lumia 925.
Of course, at the moment it is only a prototype, but he was able to bring the future a little closer, in which we don’t have to look for a charger to charge our smartphone. It will be enough to yell at him.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/229471/
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