Electricity Generation From Human Breathing – University of Wisconsin

Developers have always been in search of alternative ways for the generation of electricity. Some of them have been the use of piezoelectric crystals that generate electricity from body movements, biological fuel cells which have the ability to produce electricity from blood sugar level of a person, and wireless transmission of power from outside the body. A new method has now been developed to produce electricity from a person’s breathing rate.

This device is manufactured by the University of Wisconsin, and it relies on piezoelectric effect, but contrary to relying on body movements to produce mechanical stress, this device makes use of speed of air flow that is a reason of a person’s respiration rate to cause vibration of the plastic micro belt engineering inside the device. This belt is made up to polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF).

The air flow caused by human respiration is low as below two metres per second, but if the width of the material belt could be made thin enough, this air flow would be capable of producing vibrations in the belt and would in turn produce a microwatt of electrical energy. This device is created by Xudong Wang, who is the Materials Science and Engineering Assistant Professor along with postdoctoral researcher Chengliang Sun and graduate student of the University of Wisconsin, Jian Shi. The width of the material was reduced by making use of an ion – etching method.
This device has achieved power levels in the range of milli volts and up to 6 millivolt when the rate of air flow is maximum. Efforts are now being taken to improve the efficiency of the device.

Source: Gizmag