The weather is so hot, the sweat you produce cannot be wasted. In fact, salty sweat also has a wonderful use, and that is generating electricity.
Imagine a smartwatch on your wrist that never loses power because your sweat powers it. Let’s learn about such a promising energy source.
Sweat Power Generation: New Power-generating Biomembrane
Sweat has the functions of cooling, protecting the skin, and excreting waste from the body. Over-developed sweat glands often cause distress to people. Sticky sweat that wets clothes not only makes people It feels uncomfortable and may also give off an "unfriendly" smell.
Recently, a research team from University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) stated that the new power-generating biofilm they designed is expected to completely change the wearable electronic device industry and provide personal medical sensors, personal electronic devices, etc. Provide long-term, continuous power.
According to the paper, this biofilm , which is about the thickness of a piece of paper, is naturally produced by a modified type of Geobacter sulfurreducens (G. sulfurreducens). Biofilms consist of sheets of bacterial cells about 40 microns thick, or about the thickness of a piece of paper. Specifically, it is composed of genetically engineered sulfur-reducing bacteria.
Compared with previous research, this new type of biofilm can not only provide as much or even more energy as a battery of the same size, but also can work continuously without the need for "feeding."
Moreover, this transparent, small, thin and flexible biofilm can be directly attached to the skin like a band-aid, continuously generating stable electricity.
In addition, according to the British " Daily Mail " website, foreign researchers claimed that a new wearable device that wraps around the finger like a plaster can also collect sweat while a person sleeps and use it to generate electricity. . Prototypes of the device currently only store a small amount of electricity and need to be worn for three weeks to power a smartphone, but researchers at the University of California, San Diego hope to increase the capacity in the future.
Researchers say fingertips have one of the highest concentrations of sweat glands in the human body, with each fingertip producing 100 to 1,000 times more sweat than most other parts.
This new device uses a passive system to generate electricity from the sweat on your fingertips, even while you're sleeping or sitting completely still. Thanks to a smart sponge material, sweat can be collected and processed by conductors. The energy harvester generates a small amount of electricity when the wearer presses, starts to sweat, or taps their fingers. It converts activities such as typing, texting, playing the piano or typing Morse Code into extra power. So sending a tweet can recharge your phone.
They found that wearing it for 10 hours produced enough power to run the watch for 24 hours - about 400 millijoules.
But collecting sweat from such a small area and converting it into electricity requires special materials and engineering techniques.
Body temperature power generation: soft, stretchable
A research team from the University of Washington has developed an highly efficient stretchable heat conduction generator made from inorganic semiconductors and printed multifunctional soft materials, in self-powered wearable electronic devices , thermal tactile sensors, soft robots and human-computer interaction have huge application potential.
According to reports, this flexible, wearable heat conduction generator can not only convert body heat into electrical energy, but also has the characteristics of soft, stretchable, strong and efficient. In previous studies, these features have been difficult to fully combine.
Furthermore, the prototype heat conduction generator remained fully functional even after more than 15,000 stretching cycles at 30% strain, achieving a 6.5-fold increase in power density over previous stretchable heat conduction generators.
A unique feature of this research is that the entire production process is covered, from material synthesis to device fabrication and characterization. This gives the research team the freedom to design new materials, be creative and engineer every step of the production process.
Body temperature power supply: Human body perpetual motion machine
Whether it is possible to create a perpetual motion machine is scientifically impossible. But Japan has invented a thin film that seems to be able to create a human body perpetual motion machine.
A Japanese university has previously studied a "body temperature charging film", which is made by coating a material made of carbon nanotubes with organic compounds such as " crown ether " to produce a film with a thickness of only 0.1 mm. .
It can capture body surface heat, use the difference between body temperature and external environment to generate electricity, and make a wristband-sized charging film that can be used as a miniature human body power supply device to charge mobile phones.
its power generation efficiency is only one-tenth that of solar cell . It was originally designed to power pacemaker as human equipment.
However, following this idea, if we can make a charging film with a sufficient area, can we use the human body to connect an electric fan. In summer, the higher the temperature of the human body, the greater the temperature difference electromotive force generated, and the faster the fan rotates. As the body temperature drops, the fan will slow down. Isn't this a ready-made cooling artifact?
A T-shirt solves the charging problem
A paper in "Nature Communications" once introduced a "wearable microgrid" that can store human energy. If people wear this device, the kinetic energy and sweat generated by exercise can be converted into electricity to power small electronic devices.
This paper was completed by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego). They integrated three devices: a sweat-driven biofuel cell, a motion-driven triboelectric generator, and supercapacitor for energy storage. Harvesting energy from the wearer's movement.
The various components of the wearable microgrid are connected through flexible materials, printed on the shirt and covered with a waterproof coating.
Researchers say wearable microgrids are not affected by repeated bending, folding, crumpling or washing in water as long as no detergents are used. The
research team tested the wearable microgrid, with the wearer cycling or running for 10 minutes and then resting for 20 minutes. During the 30-minute test, the wearable microgrid was able to power an LCD watch or a small electrochromic display (a display that changes color in response to changes in voltage).
According to experiments, the entire system starts up 2 times faster than with only a biofuel cell and lasts 3 times longer than with only a triboelectric generator.
Utilization of human bioenergy
Currently, scientists have proposed many forms of using the human body to generate electricity. In addition to the most common biogenerative methods such as heartbeat power generation, foot movement and muscle movement power generation, which convert kinetic energy into electrical energy, there are also more bold ones. Blood generates electricity, sweat generates electricity, urine generates electricity and even hair generates electricity, etc.
Japanese researchers have invented a device that can extract energy from blood glucose . In this way, everyone becomes a "battery". This device invented by the Japanese provides a new way to convert glucose in human blood into electrical energy.
In Boulder Plaza in Las Vegas , a company called engoplanet developed a clean energy street lamp for it, which is connected to a pedal equipped with three mini generators. Every time someone steps on this pedal, about 5 watts of electricity are generated, which is then sent to the battery.
In addition, the "heat energy" of human body bioenergy can also be used. The human body dissipates a large amount of heat every day and spreads it through radiation. According to actual measurements, a 50-kilogram adult generally consumes about 2,500 kcal a day and night. If this heat is accumulated, 50 kilograms of water can be heated from 0°C to 50°C. Using the thermal energy of the human body to make the thermoelectric battery , the thermal energy of the human body can be converted into electrical energy.
For example, the headquarters building of a telecommunications and telephone company built in New Jersey, USA, uses the body temperature of more than 2,000 employees of the company for heating. The room temperature can be maintained above 18°C. Heating is only required when the outdoor temperature drops below -9°C. Keep warm.
Some people may ask: The total amount of electricity generated by these power generation methods may not be as much as that produced by a treadmill. Is it really necessary to go to great lengths to develop them?
It is currently popular to implant microelectronic systems in the human body to detect human health. It can detect and report people's physiological and disease levels around the clock, thereby issuing corresponding instructions to provide early warning for human diseases. So, the sublimation battery that uses blood to generate electricity can be said to perfectly solve the power consumption problem of this electronic system.
Moreover, it will also be of great help in providing power for pacemakers, insulin pumps, and various implantable chips. At least no surgery required. The most important thing is that these devices implanted in the human body are small in size and do not require much power to maintain operation. There is nothing better than using the human body itself to provide electrical support.
Generally speaking, whether it is facing the huge power demand in the future or the power supply demand of microelectronic systems, power generation from the human body is becoming a new trend.
With the continuous development of science and technology, humans will surely achieve greater results by developing and utilizing their own human body bioenergy.
END
Source: China Well-off Network
Author: Fenghua
Reviewer: Gong Zimo
Vision: Long Hao
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