There have been stories over recent years about Defense Department research into portable power, getting the military to develop their own power through body movement. When you are out on patrol and, maybe, pinned down, that power might just give you the edge to radio for help instead of ending up with a discharged battery.
It would also help with night goggle power, and for the other battery powered toys that the Marine grunts now have to wear, some of which, I am sure, we are unaware of.
Now there is a civilian breakthrough from the
Simon Fraser University, on the doorstep of PMC-Sierra in Burnaby, British Columbia.
Remember the flywheel car toys you played with as a kid? Pull them backwards on a level, hard floor and then let them go as they travel a fair distance forward. (They make a great cat tease as well.) This power producing technology is rather akin to that.
What the University has developed is being called the Biochemical Energy Harvester. It was developed in the School of Kinesiology (obviously a boy’s dream job, exploring only things that move) under the direction of Assistant Professor Max Donelan. Donelan has other titles on his business card: CIHR New Investigator and MSFHR Scholar; Director, SFU Locomotion Laboratory; Associate Member, School of Engineering Science. Whew! Some business card!
He is also the Chief Scientific Officer of
Bionic Power, which is where the University hopes to commercialize on the product development.
The present device resembles an orthopedic knee brace. If one was worn on each leg, the normal movement during walking could generate up to 10 W. Running, with 16 kg on your knees, could increase that total output to 26 W. One minute of walking could support up to 30 minutes of cell phone talk time.
Donelan was quoted as commenting that an average normal weight person has, in their fat, as much energy as in a 1 tonne battery. That means to me, technically, absolutely nothing, but when he added that “there is about as much useful energy in a 35 g granola bar as in a 3.5 kg Li-Ion battery” my mind instantly cleared as I thought in the terms of the physiologist that he is.
But this news was suddenly eclipsed by an
announcement from Professor Zhong Lin Wang of Georgia Tech that he had developed nanotechnology fibers that, woven as wearable fabrics, can generate electricity while you move around as they twist and bend. Zinc oxide nanowires of 1 nm width act like static brushes to produce the power which, it is being claimed, could amount to 80 mW from 1 m2 of fabric. Enough nanofabric for your iPod nano?
I’m very sensitive to static. I generate the stuff anytime I am not wearing leather on the soles of my shoes, or touch someone else who isn’t naturally grounded. I have often wondered whether that physical effect is not also part of an explanation of why mosquitoes as so attracted to me? Also, zinc oxide and moisture are not very friendly with one another, as you may have noticed while drying up your baby’s nether regions with it. So these clothes are probably unwashable. But we now also have self-cleaning fabrics thanks to
nanotechnology.
Sounds revolting, so I’ll stick with the knee exercises from Simon Fraser. The bionic generators will surely get smaller over time, with fewer crude individual pieces, and less weight, and there will no doubt be a huge life improvement for that isolated soldier and, as Donelan suggests, for stroke victims. But I am at a loss how to explain his belief that it will improve the life of amputees…
