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holoman
6th April 2007 - 03:14 PM
http://www.physorg.com/news95001943.html

piezoelectric materials made from perovkites has been around for a long as I can remember.

Maybe someday we will start building highways out of the material so we can get energy from trucks and cars.

Now that would be using piezoelectrics for something worthwhile.

StevenA
6th April 2007 - 06:58 PM
QUOTE
Wang and his group members Xudong Wang, Jinhui Song and Jin Liu expect that with optimization, their nanogenerator could produce as much as 4 watts per cubic centimeter – based on a calculation for a single nanowire.


I'm certain there are some catches in the "4 watts per cubic centimeter" statement. If the scale is correct, then most likely that would only be achieveable if the mass was distributed and not packaged as a cube or it would need to be working with converting thermal energy into eletricity as well.

QUOTE (->
QUOTE
Wang and his group members Xudong Wang, Jinhui Song and Jin Liu expect that with optimization, their nanogenerator could produce as much as 4 watts per cubic centimeter – based on a calculation for a single nanowire.


I'm certain there are some catches in the "4 watts per cubic centimeter" statement. If the scale is correct, then most likely that would only be achieveable if the mass was distributed and not packaged as a cube or it would need to be working with converting thermal energy into eletricity as well.

That would be enough to power a broad range of nanometer-scale defense, environmental and biomedical applications, including biosensors implanted in the body, environmental monitors – and even nanoscale robots.


I'm certain there are better uses for it than most of these.
AgentG
9th April 2007 - 05:46 PM
There is no mention of the voltage difference produced with this device. Only an estimate for the total power per cubic centimeter.
MarkL
14th April 2007 - 01:06 AM
Could the nanowires be made small enough to collect energy from Brownian motion?
Les Slater
3rd September 2007 - 01:57 AM
I too have been concerned with piezo harvesting of brownian motion. I found this thread by googling brownian nano piezo power generation.

One problem I have always confronted is the rectification of the AC signals. Looks like this is solved here.

Does the nano tube scale to where brownian motion would produce an electron flow and would it be enough to get by the shchotky barrier?
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