1
00:00:04,040 --> 00:00:07,040
Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text stuff from how

2
00:00:07,120 --> 00:00:15,320
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Hey, they're and welcome to text stuff.

3
00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:18,639
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Laing, And today we wanted

4
00:00:18,640 --> 00:00:25,480
Speaker 1: to talk about something pretty darn cool, nanogenerators. What are nanogenerators, Jonathan? Well,

5
00:00:25,480 --> 00:00:27,600
Speaker 1: you know, in order to understand what a nanogenerator is,

6
00:00:27,600 --> 00:00:31,080
Speaker 1: it helps if we define some terms really quickly, all right,

7
00:00:31,120 --> 00:00:34,200
Speaker 1: because because nano and it clearly means tiny, it means

8
00:00:34,320 --> 00:00:37,320
Speaker 1: it's it's one billion. Yeah, if you talk about nanometer,

9
00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:39,280
Speaker 1: it's a one billionth of a meter yep. So we're

10
00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:42,320
Speaker 1: talking about the nano scale. You're you're saying that stuff

11
00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:47,000
Speaker 1: that exists gently speaking, in between one and a thousand

12
00:00:47,159 --> 00:00:49,879
Speaker 1: nanometers somewhere in there, and usually it's between one and

13
00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:52,440
Speaker 1: five d nanometers. That tends to be the area we

14
00:00:52,479 --> 00:00:56,920
Speaker 1: talked about. Now, the nanoscale is is one order larger

15
00:00:56,960 --> 00:01:01,240
Speaker 1: than the atomic scale, right, So even at the nanoscale,

16
00:01:01,280 --> 00:01:04,920
Speaker 1: atoms are still tiny, but the nano scale is much

17
00:01:04,959 --> 00:01:08,200
Speaker 1: smaller than what we are accustomed to, and we need

18
00:01:08,319 --> 00:01:10,920
Speaker 1: very special equipment to work with stuff and even see

19
00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,200
Speaker 1: stuff that's on the nano scale. Right, Yeah, Just to

20
00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:15,600
Speaker 1: give you an idea. Human hair is usually between about

21
00:01:15,760 --> 00:01:19,880
Speaker 1: six micrometers wide, which means that you would have to

22
00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:25,080
Speaker 1: divide a hair at least sixty thousand times lengthwise in

23
00:01:25,160 --> 00:01:29,440
Speaker 1: half in order to make it one one nanometer right exactly.

24
00:01:29,520 --> 00:01:32,039
Speaker 1: Yeah nanometer. Yeah, it takes. It takes very small. It

25
00:01:32,040 --> 00:01:35,119
Speaker 1: takes one tho nanometers to make one micrometer. That will

26
00:01:35,120 --> 00:01:39,199
Speaker 1: become important later on in our conversation. So, yeah, super small.

27
00:01:39,360 --> 00:01:42,200
Speaker 1: Think of the smallest thing. You know, it's smaller than that,

28
00:01:42,319 --> 00:01:44,880
Speaker 1: way small, unless you're thinking of like an atom, in

29
00:01:44,880 --> 00:01:47,240
Speaker 1: which case you went too far, turn around, go back,

30
00:01:47,319 --> 00:01:50,279
Speaker 1: come back. But yeah, So so we're talking the nano scale,

31
00:01:50,360 --> 00:01:54,960
Speaker 1: very tiny stuff, and there's a lot of interest in nanotechnology,

32
00:01:55,080 --> 00:01:58,160
Speaker 1: this idea of being able to create things that work

33
00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:02,800
Speaker 1: on this nanoscale for all sorts of applications, everything from

34
00:02:03,360 --> 00:02:09,040
Speaker 1: actual mechanical applications, biological applications uh and uh, and even

35
00:02:09,120 --> 00:02:12,880
Speaker 1: stuff like you can find nanoparticles and stuff like like sunblock,

36
00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:16,040
Speaker 1: you know, has nanoparticles of zinc in it to help

37
00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:21,359
Speaker 1: block ultra violet radiation. Well, when you talk about building

38
00:02:21,400 --> 00:02:24,520
Speaker 1: things on that nanoscale and you're talking about actual stuff

39
00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:28,400
Speaker 1: that's doing work, it has to get power from somewhere.

40
00:02:29,400 --> 00:02:32,480
Speaker 1: So where do you get power from? If you are

41
00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:36,040
Speaker 1: this tiny? You can't go to a nano gas station

42
00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:39,400
Speaker 1: and fill up with nano fuel as far as I know,

43
00:02:39,520 --> 00:02:42,720
Speaker 1: not that we're personally aware of. Now, So the nanogenerator

44
00:02:42,880 --> 00:02:48,240
Speaker 1: is this this idea of a device that uses stuff

45
00:02:48,240 --> 00:02:51,640
Speaker 1: on the nanoscale in order to generate small amounts of

46
00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:56,320
Speaker 1: electricity by converting energy from one format into electricity. Now,

47
00:02:56,360 --> 00:03:00,480
Speaker 1: remember we cannot create or destroy energy. We can merely

48
00:03:00,760 --> 00:03:03,760
Speaker 1: convert it from one form into another. And in this

49
00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:06,800
Speaker 1: case when nanogenerators, there are a couple of different kinds

50
00:03:06,800 --> 00:03:09,760
Speaker 1: of energy that we can look at to convert into

51
00:03:09,800 --> 00:03:15,160
Speaker 1: electrical energy. The main one is mechanical energy, so through

52
00:03:15,240 --> 00:03:18,720
Speaker 1: piezo electric piezo electric materials. Yeah, so if you've ever

53
00:03:18,760 --> 00:03:21,679
Speaker 1: heard this term, piezo electric or as I sometimes say,

54
00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:27,840
Speaker 1: piezo electric because I'm pretentious, or piezoelectric because pie is delicious.

55
00:03:27,919 --> 00:03:33,680
Speaker 1: Pie has been so long, guys, I'm sorry, Hi, alright,

56
00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:37,280
Speaker 1: So anyway, Yeah, so piezo electric materials, this is this

57
00:03:37,320 --> 00:03:39,760
Speaker 1: is a kind of material that when you apply a

58
00:03:39,840 --> 00:03:44,960
Speaker 1: mechanical stress to it, it essentially emits electricity and the

59
00:03:45,080 --> 00:03:49,240
Speaker 1: reverse is also true if you were to apply an

60
00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:52,640
Speaker 1: electric charge to a piezo electric material, it would then

61
00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:56,040
Speaker 1: move in some way, vibrate in some way. Right, All

62
00:03:56,040 --> 00:04:01,040
Speaker 1: of your quartz watches, for example, contain piezo electric crys crystals. Yeah, yeah, exactly,

63
00:04:01,040 --> 00:04:05,080
Speaker 1: you get this little uh. You apply a very specific

64
00:04:05,120 --> 00:04:08,080
Speaker 1: amount of electricity to this quartz watch, and it vibrates

65
00:04:08,120 --> 00:04:11,240
Speaker 1: in a very specific way. It's it's predictable and it

66
00:04:11,280 --> 00:04:13,720
Speaker 1: will do that every single time. And that's you know

67
00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:16,360
Speaker 1: why they are great for keeping time. So as long

68
00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:19,080
Speaker 1: as you've worked out all the math, it should it

69
00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:21,960
Speaker 1: should keep time very very well, of course, you know,

70
00:04:22,160 --> 00:04:24,240
Speaker 1: until something goes wrong with one of the other mechanisms

71
00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:26,200
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, and then then it's time to buy

72
00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:27,960
Speaker 1: a new watch. That's how that's what time it is.

73
00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:31,680
Speaker 1: You you still know what time it is, just it's anyway.

74
00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:34,880
Speaker 1: So piece of electric materials very useful when it comes

75
00:04:34,880 --> 00:04:37,799
Speaker 1: to nanogenerators. What you have to do is create something

76
00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:42,920
Speaker 1: that can take a mechanical stress pinching, bending in some way,

77
00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:47,480
Speaker 1: and create a convert that mechanical energy into electrical energy,

78
00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:50,160
Speaker 1: and then you can apply that electrical energy to what

79
00:04:50,200 --> 00:04:53,599
Speaker 1: we call a load in electrical terms electronics, you know,

80
00:04:53,640 --> 00:04:56,280
Speaker 1: you have an electronic load that essentially means it's going

81
00:04:56,360 --> 00:04:59,080
Speaker 1: through some sort of circuit in order to do work

82
00:04:59,240 --> 00:05:01,599
Speaker 1: of some kind. That might be lighting up an LED,

83
00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:05,760
Speaker 1: or it might be helping recharge a battery, or it

84
00:05:05,800 --> 00:05:09,520
Speaker 1: could be powering medical device. But we'll get into the

85
00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:13,400
Speaker 1: applications later on. So that's the main one. And in fact,

86
00:05:13,480 --> 00:05:15,400
Speaker 1: if you go to how stuff works dot com, first

87
00:05:15,400 --> 00:05:19,159
Speaker 1: of all, you're awesome because it's a great website and

88
00:05:19,160 --> 00:05:22,400
Speaker 1: we've got some amazing articles on there. One of those

89
00:05:22,440 --> 00:05:26,520
Speaker 1: amazing articles is how nanogenerators work, and the focus on

90
00:05:26,560 --> 00:05:29,960
Speaker 1: that is the piece of electric nanogenerator. But we'll talk

91
00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:32,840
Speaker 1: about a couple of other types as well in this podcast.

92
00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:36,120
Speaker 1: And Uh, so you've got that, You've got that nano size,

93
00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:40,040
Speaker 1: you know, it's tiny, tiny, tiny, You've got the generator part,

94
00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:45,719
Speaker 1: which is the electricity. Where did this idea come from? Well,

95
00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:49,040
Speaker 1: right down the road, as it turns out, from us. Yeah,

96
00:05:49,400 --> 00:05:51,960
Speaker 1: a lot of the research has been done by doctor

97
00:05:52,040 --> 00:05:55,560
Speaker 1: Zo Lingen of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Yeah, Georgia

98
00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:58,240
Speaker 1: Tech that is the rival school to the college I

99
00:05:58,279 --> 00:06:01,000
Speaker 1: went to. Uh, they are their mascot is the Yellow

100
00:06:01,040 --> 00:06:06,480
Speaker 1: Jackets and we hate them. I go Bulldogs. I went

101
00:06:06,520 --> 00:06:09,640
Speaker 1: to the University of Florida. Oh I hate you too.

102
00:06:10,320 --> 00:06:16,719
Speaker 1: That's tough really imagine there was a there was a

103
00:06:16,760 --> 00:06:19,800
Speaker 1: fullback that I just thought looked exactly like you who

104
00:06:19,880 --> 00:06:23,840
Speaker 1: played for Florida anyway. Yeah, so, Dr John ling Wong

105
00:06:24,839 --> 00:06:27,120
Speaker 1: of Georgia Tech has done a lot of work, a

106
00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:31,479
Speaker 1: lot of amazing research in nano generators, piece of electric

107
00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:34,800
Speaker 1: and other kinds as well. And uh, in fact, it,

108
00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:37,400
Speaker 1: like I said, it's just down the road. So I

109
00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:39,800
Speaker 1: really hope that at some point I will be able

110
00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:42,599
Speaker 1: to visit the Georgia Tech campus and actually maybe speak

111
00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:46,520
Speaker 1: with him, because yeah, the guy has done some phenomenal work.

112
00:06:46,520 --> 00:06:49,400
Speaker 1: There are a lot of papers that are available for

113
00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:52,880
Speaker 1: free online that you can read. Georgia Tech hosts many

114
00:06:52,960 --> 00:06:55,839
Speaker 1: of them, and you can actually read the scientific papers.

115
00:06:56,400 --> 00:06:58,480
Speaker 1: I will go ahead and give you guys a warning.

116
00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:02,760
Speaker 1: They are not meant for They're extremely scientific. Yeah, if

117
00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:08,800
Speaker 1: you're not terribly familiar with with with electrical engineering or physics, uh,

118
00:07:08,839 --> 00:07:12,160
Speaker 1: they can they can get very dense, very quickly, but

119
00:07:12,480 --> 00:07:15,640
Speaker 1: they are uh, you know, the this is the leading

120
00:07:15,680 --> 00:07:17,920
Speaker 1: research in this field. So it's very interesting stuff. We'll

121
00:07:17,960 --> 00:07:21,200
Speaker 1: toss up some lengths on social Yeah, definitely. So let's

122
00:07:21,200 --> 00:07:26,360
Speaker 1: talk specifically about the piezoelectric nanogenerator and what's going on there.

123
00:07:27,080 --> 00:07:30,360
Speaker 1: So they're using they've used lots of different materials to

124
00:07:30,400 --> 00:07:34,320
Speaker 1: try and do this because, uh, there are several different

125
00:07:34,440 --> 00:07:39,120
Speaker 1: kinds of materials that exhibit piezo electric qualities, mostly crystals

126
00:07:39,160 --> 00:07:42,000
Speaker 1: and ceramics of various kinds. Yeah, so you know that

127
00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:44,720
Speaker 1: you've got you've got some choices there to start with.

128
00:07:44,960 --> 00:07:47,320
Speaker 1: How do you narrow that down? Well, one of the

129
00:07:47,440 --> 00:07:50,640
Speaker 1: things that Wonga and his team were looking at were

130
00:07:51,840 --> 00:07:54,840
Speaker 1: stuff that that would not be too brittle, because if

131
00:07:54,880 --> 00:07:56,800
Speaker 1: you're applying a lot of mechanical stress to it and

132
00:07:56,880 --> 00:08:00,360
Speaker 1: you want to have this have a practical application, something

133
00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:03,120
Speaker 1: that's flexible that has some give and doesn't break easily

134
00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:06,520
Speaker 1: would be very useful, Yeah, because otherwise otherwise you really

135
00:08:06,520 --> 00:08:08,400
Speaker 1: get it once and then after that it's like, now

136
00:08:08,560 --> 00:08:11,320
Speaker 1: that was a great generator for one second. Yeah, Yeah,

137
00:08:11,600 --> 00:08:15,120
Speaker 1: And that might be important for some applications, but not

138
00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:20,320
Speaker 1: so much for anything. Uh. And they also wanted to

139
00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:25,160
Speaker 1: find considering that some of the the applications, potential applications

140
00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:28,600
Speaker 1: could be medical and might even require a device to

141
00:08:28,600 --> 00:08:31,760
Speaker 1: be implanted in a person. They wanted to find something

142
00:08:31,800 --> 00:08:36,040
Speaker 1: that would be biocompatible, basically non toxic. You know, the

143
00:08:36,240 --> 00:08:38,600
Speaker 1: goal was sort of less toxic than the stuff that

144
00:08:38,640 --> 00:08:44,280
Speaker 1: goes into the batteries that are already in medical implantable devices. Exactly. Yes, yea,

145
00:08:44,440 --> 00:08:47,760
Speaker 1: So it's that was definitely a goal. And so when

146
00:08:47,800 --> 00:08:50,880
Speaker 1: they were looking into different materials, the one that seemed

147
00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:52,920
Speaker 1: to be the most promising and the one that they've

148
00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:57,000
Speaker 1: done much of their work on is zinc oxide. So

149
00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:01,560
Speaker 1: they ended up creating a nano generator using zinc oxide

150
00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:04,079
Speaker 1: as the basis for it. Now, nano generator has a

151
00:09:04,120 --> 00:09:08,240
Speaker 1: couple of different parts. Uh, nano wires are really important parts.

152
00:09:08,360 --> 00:09:12,040
Speaker 1: Nano wires are these incredibly they're exactly what you would think.

153
00:09:12,040 --> 00:09:16,120
Speaker 1: They're wires that are on the nanoscale. These are measuring

154
00:09:16,160 --> 00:09:19,480
Speaker 1: from about a hundred to three hundred nanometers in diameter. Yeah,

155
00:09:19,559 --> 00:09:20,880
Speaker 1: so if you're if you were to look at a

156
00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:22,880
Speaker 1: cross section of these, first of all, you'd have to

157
00:09:22,920 --> 00:09:26,360
Speaker 1: have like a scanning microscope electron scanning microscope to be

158
00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:28,840
Speaker 1: able to see it. But between a hundred and three

159
00:09:29,040 --> 00:09:30,920
Speaker 1: d nimeters in diameter. If you were to do that

160
00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:33,959
Speaker 1: cross section their length, they are actually much much, much

161
00:09:34,040 --> 00:09:36,960
Speaker 1: much longer longer than they are wide, about a hundred

162
00:09:36,960 --> 00:09:40,040
Speaker 1: microns in length. Yeah. Now remember a micron is one

163
00:09:40,120 --> 00:09:44,559
Speaker 1: thousand nanometers, so you're talking about a hundred thousand nanometers

164
00:09:44,559 --> 00:09:48,319
Speaker 1: in length and a hundred nanometers in diameter. So the

165
00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:52,080
Speaker 1: ratio there is pretty incredible. Yeah. Yeah, but but but

166
00:09:52,080 --> 00:09:55,240
Speaker 1: it's still it's still I mean, the length is still

167
00:09:55,280 --> 00:09:58,920
Speaker 1: only about the same width as two human hairs put together. Yeah,

168
00:09:58,960 --> 00:10:01,160
Speaker 1: if you put two human hair side by side, that's

169
00:10:01,160 --> 00:10:06,000
Speaker 1: how long these wires are. So we're still talking super tiny. Yeah.

170
00:10:06,080 --> 00:10:08,480
Speaker 1: I can't even imagine trying to do research with something

171
00:10:08,559 --> 00:10:11,200
Speaker 1: that's small. Yes, you have to have some very specific

172
00:10:11,240 --> 00:10:15,960
Speaker 1: equipment or incredibly steady hands. I'm amazed. I think it's

173
00:10:15,960 --> 00:10:19,320
Speaker 1: gonna be the equipment thing. Probably, Yeah, I can't imagine

174
00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:22,960
Speaker 1: someone actually, uh sorry I slipped with the Tweezers. We

175
00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:27,200
Speaker 1: lost all our research. So yeah, they took these zinc

176
00:10:27,200 --> 00:10:30,719
Speaker 1: ox side nano wires and they put it on to

177
00:10:32,040 --> 00:10:37,800
Speaker 1: a an etched flexible surface that is called a substrate, which,

178
00:10:37,840 --> 00:10:40,760
Speaker 1: if you are familiar with things like semiconductors, this is

179
00:10:40,760 --> 00:10:45,760
Speaker 1: going to start sounding familiar. Um. And uh. They then

180
00:10:45,880 --> 00:10:48,679
Speaker 1: had some other components that are made from from silicone

181
00:10:48,760 --> 00:10:52,079
Speaker 1: to help with this, uh, to create on an electrode,

182
00:10:52,120 --> 00:10:55,439
Speaker 1: because obviously you need something that's going to collect. Yeah,

183
00:10:55,520 --> 00:10:57,679
Speaker 1: that's gonna act as like a harness to attact like

184
00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:01,320
Speaker 1: the conduit for that electric So you need to have

185
00:11:01,480 --> 00:11:04,719
Speaker 1: something that the electricity can flow through. Otherwise all you're

186
00:11:04,760 --> 00:11:07,360
Speaker 1: doing is generating electric charge that doesn't really go anywhere.

187
00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:12,360
Speaker 1: It will just redistribute to wherever the the electrons can go,

188
00:11:12,760 --> 00:11:14,800
Speaker 1: right yeah, yeah, So you've got kind of a sandwich

189
00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:20,240
Speaker 1: going here. Yeah, and so you've got this zigzag electrode pattern. Uh.

190
00:11:20,280 --> 00:11:24,439
Speaker 1: And when you start to apply pressure to that nanogenerator,

191
00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:28,600
Speaker 1: those nano wires all start to flex. And because of

192
00:11:28,640 --> 00:11:32,920
Speaker 1: that piezo electric nature of zinc oxide, which also acts

193
00:11:32,960 --> 00:11:35,840
Speaker 1: as a conductor, that's another reason why they chose that material.

194
00:11:36,720 --> 00:11:39,200
Speaker 1: When it when they flex, they start to generate that

195
00:11:39,240 --> 00:11:42,280
Speaker 1: electrical charge that that nature of the mechanical energy and

196
00:11:42,280 --> 00:11:46,960
Speaker 1: the electrical energy starts to come into effect. Now the electrode,

197
00:11:47,200 --> 00:11:50,679
Speaker 1: that silicon electrode ends up capturing that charge and it

198
00:11:50,760 --> 00:11:54,439
Speaker 1: carries it through the load the circuit that nanogenerator is

199
00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:58,880
Speaker 1: attached to, and uh, and there might be several electrodes,

200
00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:01,280
Speaker 1: lots and lots and lots of nano wires in a

201
00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:04,920
Speaker 1: millions millions of nana wires. So you're you're talking because

202
00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:06,760
Speaker 1: I mean clearly, if you just had one nano wire

203
00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:09,440
Speaker 1: and one electrode, the amount of electricity you would draw

204
00:12:09,440 --> 00:12:11,559
Speaker 1: off of that would be so tiny as to be

205
00:12:11,600 --> 00:12:14,520
Speaker 1: difficult to put into words. So by collecting all of

206
00:12:14,520 --> 00:12:18,200
Speaker 1: these and putting it all together into a larger form factor,

207
00:12:18,520 --> 00:12:22,319
Speaker 1: you're going to generate more electricity. Uh. The I remember

208
00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:26,719
Speaker 1: reading at least in the early stages, they their efficiency

209
00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:30,840
Speaker 1: of converting mechanical energy into electrical energy was between seventeen

210
00:12:30,840 --> 00:12:34,720
Speaker 1: and thirty percent. So that's a small amount that you're thinking.

211
00:12:35,040 --> 00:12:37,760
Speaker 1: You know, the whole purpose of this is to create

212
00:12:37,800 --> 00:12:40,360
Speaker 1: something that's incredibly sensitive, because you've got on such a

213
00:12:40,360 --> 00:12:43,320
Speaker 1: small scale that even the smallest movement is going to

214
00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:46,120
Speaker 1: create electrics. Something something like a like a heartbeat, or

215
00:12:46,200 --> 00:12:48,560
Speaker 1: the touch of a finger, or even a even a

216
00:12:48,840 --> 00:12:52,120
Speaker 1: not even stiff breeze, a gentle breeze could be activating this.

217
00:12:52,280 --> 00:12:55,520
Speaker 1: The constriction of a blood vessel or even the flow

218
00:12:55,679 --> 00:12:59,320
Speaker 1: of blood through a vessel could be enough to generate

219
00:12:59,559 --> 00:13:03,520
Speaker 1: a significant for this size amount of electricity, and depending

220
00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:06,480
Speaker 1: upon what you you need that electricity for, it may

221
00:13:06,520 --> 00:13:09,400
Speaker 1: be enough to meet all of your needs, or at

222
00:13:09,480 --> 00:13:11,640
Speaker 1: least enough of your needs. So that the battery, because

223
00:13:11,760 --> 00:13:14,080
Speaker 1: I think we're never going to get fully away from batteries,

224
00:13:14,280 --> 00:13:16,400
Speaker 1: but the battery would be more of a backup than

225
00:13:17,760 --> 00:13:21,160
Speaker 1: something to to kind of add in in between or

226
00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:26,800
Speaker 1: in case something doesn't sure. Yeah, the peak that they've recorded,

227
00:13:26,840 --> 00:13:29,480
Speaker 1: according to UM a paper that they published in two

228
00:13:29,520 --> 00:13:31,960
Speaker 1: thousand and twelve was that from a from a one

229
00:13:31,960 --> 00:13:36,880
Speaker 1: centimeter square circuit of this stuff, they recorded a high

230
00:13:36,920 --> 00:13:41,520
Speaker 1: level of thirty seven volt output um, which you know,

231
00:13:41,679 --> 00:13:43,760
Speaker 1: for for comparison to double a battery is what like

232
00:13:43,760 --> 00:13:47,560
Speaker 1: like one point five and a car battery is twelve. So,

233
00:13:47,600 --> 00:13:50,640
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's pretty impressive when you're thinking about

234
00:13:50,640 --> 00:13:53,720
Speaker 1: this tiny scale in lab standards that that's you know,

235
00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:57,080
Speaker 1: a separate thing from real life experience. It's not a

236
00:13:57,120 --> 00:13:59,959
Speaker 1: field tests, right, but it's pretty impressive. Yeah. And here

237
00:14:00,080 --> 00:14:03,720
Speaker 1: here's something directly from one of Wong's papers. He says,

238
00:14:04,200 --> 00:14:07,880
Speaker 1: the coupling of piezo electric and semiconducting properties, and zinc

239
00:14:07,880 --> 00:14:11,319
Speaker 1: oxide creates a strain field and charge separation across the

240
00:14:11,400 --> 00:14:14,320
Speaker 1: nano wire as a result of its bending. The mechanism

241
00:14:14,400 --> 00:14:16,520
Speaker 1: of the power generator relies on the coupling of piece

242
00:14:16,520 --> 00:14:18,960
Speaker 1: of electric and semi conducting properties of zinc oxide, as

243
00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:21,760
Speaker 1: well as the formation of a shot key barrier between

244
00:14:21,760 --> 00:14:26,560
Speaker 1: the metal and zinc oxide contacts. So shot key barriers.

245
00:14:27,080 --> 00:14:28,200
Speaker 1: This is one of those things that I'm not going

246
00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:30,240
Speaker 1: to get into a lot of detail because frankly, it

247
00:14:30,320 --> 00:14:34,760
Speaker 1: goes well beyond my own understanding of electrical engineering and physics.

248
00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:40,080
Speaker 1: But it's essentially a potential barrier, potential being electric electrical potential,

249
00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:43,600
Speaker 1: not not that potentially this could be a barrier to us,

250
00:14:43,600 --> 00:14:47,119
Speaker 1: not like that. Uh. And it's formed at the junction

251
00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:51,400
Speaker 1: of a metal and a semiconductor. So when you get

252
00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:53,640
Speaker 1: to those junctions, that's where you have the shot key barrier.

253
00:14:54,280 --> 00:14:56,720
Speaker 1: And it can act like a diode, which means, if

254
00:14:56,760 --> 00:15:00,640
Speaker 1: you're familiar with electric electronics, a diode h allows current

255
00:15:00,680 --> 00:15:03,080
Speaker 1: to pass through in one direction but prevents it from

256
00:15:03,080 --> 00:15:07,120
Speaker 1: passing through the other way. So that's generally speaking, while

257
00:15:07,160 --> 00:15:09,400
Speaker 1: shot key barriers, it gets way more technical than that,

258
00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:10,880
Speaker 1: and I know that all the people out there who

259
00:15:10,880 --> 00:15:14,480
Speaker 1: are schooled in electronics and and in this kind of

260
00:15:14,520 --> 00:15:18,000
Speaker 1: stuff are probably screaming at me for oversimplifying it to

261
00:15:18,040 --> 00:15:21,840
Speaker 1: that extent. But frankly, uh, I read about it for

262
00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:26,520
Speaker 1: about an hour and watched a full presentation from a

263
00:15:26,680 --> 00:15:29,920
Speaker 1: university in India about it, and that's what I came

264
00:15:29,960 --> 00:15:33,480
Speaker 1: away with. So, because this is not my area of expertise,

265
00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:37,280
Speaker 1: but it is really fascinating And and just to be clear,

266
00:15:37,920 --> 00:15:41,000
Speaker 1: while a lot of our research does follow the work

267
00:15:41,080 --> 00:15:43,680
Speaker 1: that Wong and his team have done, there are other

268
00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:47,440
Speaker 1: teams out there that have also explored the piece of

269
00:15:47,480 --> 00:15:50,520
Speaker 1: electric nanogenerator model, and and some of them are doing

270
00:15:50,560 --> 00:15:54,200
Speaker 1: a slightly different research. There's one team, um, a combination

271
00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:58,400
Speaker 1: of Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania, McAlpine and

272
00:15:58,480 --> 00:16:03,400
Speaker 1: Pira Hit. Yes. Um, they've been dealing with M. Dirk

273
00:16:03,480 --> 00:16:07,320
Speaker 1: Nate tighten ate. Is that lead? Lead? I have no

274
00:16:07,400 --> 00:16:09,840
Speaker 1: idea what it is. You know what that is? Well,

275
00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:12,320
Speaker 1: you know, it's stuff. It's stuff. It's a it's a

276
00:16:12,360 --> 00:16:15,440
Speaker 1: it's a piece of electric stuff. Yeah. They also are

277
00:16:15,480 --> 00:16:18,680
Speaker 1: creating a nano ribbons. All right, Well, it's this this

278
00:16:18,720 --> 00:16:21,840
Speaker 1: PCT is extremely brittle, and they figured out a way

279
00:16:21,960 --> 00:16:24,800
Speaker 1: that when it's a specifically shaped it can stretch up

280
00:16:24,800 --> 00:16:29,760
Speaker 1: to ten percent without breaking and uh and therefore be useful. Right,

281
00:16:29,800 --> 00:16:32,280
Speaker 1: And and these nano ribbons are that shape that they

282
00:16:32,280 --> 00:16:34,840
Speaker 1: have come up with. That, Yeah, because usually this is

283
00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:38,760
Speaker 1: that they're using a material that that traditionally you would

284
00:16:38,800 --> 00:16:41,240
Speaker 1: not think would be very useful because it's very brittle,

285
00:16:41,760 --> 00:16:44,120
Speaker 1: But because they have shaped it in this way, it

286
00:16:44,160 --> 00:16:47,160
Speaker 1: could actually work in this piece of electric nanogenerator format

287
00:16:47,240 --> 00:16:50,680
Speaker 1: because it doesn't break immediately upon use. All Right, They

288
00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:54,240
Speaker 1: fix these nano ribbons to UM to stretched silicone rubber

289
00:16:54,240 --> 00:16:58,040
Speaker 1: surfaces UM, and when those surfaces are relaxed, it creates

290
00:16:58,240 --> 00:17:00,640
Speaker 1: a buckle in the nano ribbons, a bend in the

291
00:17:00,720 --> 00:17:04,880
Speaker 1: nano ribbons without actually breaking them. And uh then then

292
00:17:04,920 --> 00:17:09,359
Speaker 1: in their bent state, any movement within them generates electricity. Yeah,

293
00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:12,159
Speaker 1: it's pretty awesome. I mean, these are really creative ways

294
00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:17,400
Speaker 1: of designing these sort of tiny, tiny generators. Now, those

295
00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:21,240
Speaker 1: are the that's the main kind of nanogenerator we talk

296
00:17:21,280 --> 00:17:23,320
Speaker 1: about in the article on how stuff works. But like

297
00:17:23,359 --> 00:17:25,960
Speaker 1: I said earlier, there are a couple of other methods

298
00:17:26,160 --> 00:17:28,720
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about those in just a minute,

299
00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:31,359
Speaker 1: but before we do, let's take a quick moment to

300
00:17:31,440 --> 00:17:34,840
Speaker 1: thank our sponsors. All right, and we're back. So we've

301
00:17:34,880 --> 00:17:37,480
Speaker 1: got the piece of electric stuff down. We're experts, we

302
00:17:37,520 --> 00:17:39,560
Speaker 1: know all about it. Yeah, yeah we can. You can

303
00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:42,639
Speaker 1: ask us anything and we will him and haw. But

304
00:17:42,640 --> 00:17:45,160
Speaker 1: but we'll pretend like we know we will. We will

305
00:17:45,200 --> 00:17:47,400
Speaker 1: look it up on the internet. Real good. It's super

306
00:17:47,440 --> 00:17:50,480
Speaker 1: fascinating stuff. And I am familiar with piece of electricity

307
00:17:50,840 --> 00:17:54,040
Speaker 1: or I shouldn't say piece electricity, but piece of electric materials.

308
00:17:54,080 --> 00:17:56,439
Speaker 1: But this was this was at a level of detail

309
00:17:56,480 --> 00:17:58,959
Speaker 1: that would beyond anything I had read before. But like

310
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:01,560
Speaker 1: we said, that's not the only only way. There's also

311
00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:04,800
Speaker 1: a kind of nanogenerator. And again Wong has done a

312
00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:09,320
Speaker 1: lot of research in all of these called triboelectric generators.

313
00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:13,040
Speaker 1: And uh, this is this is basically static electricity. Yeah,

314
00:18:13,200 --> 00:18:16,680
Speaker 1: that's that's it's friction based, right exactly. So there's still

315
00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:19,680
Speaker 1: a mechanical element to it, but it's not the mechanical

316
00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:23,800
Speaker 1: stress that is converted into electricity. It's rather that the

317
00:18:23,920 --> 00:18:28,639
Speaker 1: act of friction ends up generating this electric charge that

318
00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:32,080
Speaker 1: is then harnessed to go into a circuit. Right. It's

319
00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:35,359
Speaker 1: that it's the fact that some materials can can gain

320
00:18:35,480 --> 00:18:37,960
Speaker 1: or lose or tend to gain or lose electrons upon

321
00:18:38,119 --> 00:18:40,720
Speaker 1: contact with other materials. Yeah, so you have to use

322
00:18:40,760 --> 00:18:45,160
Speaker 1: two different kinds of generally speaking plastic materials and rub

323
00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:47,720
Speaker 1: those against each other. Uh. They found that if you

324
00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:50,720
Speaker 1: use two of the same type, you would not get

325
00:18:50,760 --> 00:18:53,840
Speaker 1: the kind of right. And and you know, and you can.

326
00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:56,639
Speaker 1: I'm sure that everyone here has tested this, uh, you

327
00:18:56,680 --> 00:18:59,359
Speaker 1: know in an annoying or hazardous way in terms of

328
00:18:59,640 --> 00:19:01,719
Speaker 1: you know, they're delivering a small shock to a sibling

329
00:19:02,080 --> 00:19:04,520
Speaker 1: by rubbing your feet on the carpet and going over

330
00:19:04,560 --> 00:19:07,840
Speaker 1: and poking them, or the rubbing of the balloon against

331
00:19:07,880 --> 00:19:11,240
Speaker 1: the hair, right, right, Yeah, or or even something something

332
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:16,560
Speaker 1: more unfortunate and dangerous like uh, if you're if you're

333
00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:19,560
Speaker 1: dealing with computers with with computer enters, right, and you

334
00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:22,720
Speaker 1: haven't grounded your having grounded yourself, and you know it's

335
00:19:22,760 --> 00:19:25,440
Speaker 1: my Faraday cages are really really cool. It's it's also

336
00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:27,840
Speaker 1: why if you ever decided to build your own computer

337
00:19:27,880 --> 00:19:29,800
Speaker 1: and you're doing it from scratch and you're getting ready

338
00:19:29,840 --> 00:19:34,640
Speaker 1: to put that microprocessor into the motherboard, ground yourself first, please,

339
00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:38,640
Speaker 1: because otherwise that that lovely stuff that's saying in front

340
00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:42,439
Speaker 1: of you maybe rendered useless with one unfortunate zap. Important

341
00:19:42,480 --> 00:19:45,480
Speaker 1: safety tip, thanks Sagon. Yeah, you're welcome. Tell him about

342
00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:50,240
Speaker 1: the twinkie. So the tribal electric generators, they they harness

343
00:19:50,359 --> 00:19:56,439
Speaker 1: this stack electricity essentially, but they to to maximize it.

344
00:19:56,840 --> 00:19:59,080
Speaker 1: Wong and his team discovered something interesting. They found that

345
00:19:59,119 --> 00:20:01,840
Speaker 1: if you took the these two different kinds of essentially

346
00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:06,040
Speaker 1: plastic materials polymers, these polymers, and if you were to

347
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:09,159
Speaker 1: put on the sides that are rubbing against each other,

348
00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:12,160
Speaker 1: if you were to put little tiny pyramids, that would

349
00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:16,720
Speaker 1: actually maximize the electric field that you would generate, and

350
00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:19,720
Speaker 1: so it would become more efficient. Otherwise, if it was smooth,

351
00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:22,480
Speaker 1: it would still work, it just wouldn't generate as much.

352
00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:26,400
Speaker 1: But yeah, having the greater surface area. Yeah, so they

353
00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:28,879
Speaker 1: were actually using uh, all right, let's see if I

354
00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:32,480
Speaker 1: can do this, because I I even wrote out how

355
00:20:32,520 --> 00:20:34,960
Speaker 1: I was supposed to say this very long word, so

356
00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:38,760
Speaker 1: this could be disaster, folks, strap yourselves in. But they

357
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:42,800
Speaker 1: used a sheet of polyester. So that's not the long one.

358
00:20:42,880 --> 00:20:45,560
Speaker 1: That's the easy one. So they went back into the seventies.

359
00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:48,399
Speaker 1: Very concerned, I went back into the seventies, took some

360
00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:52,000
Speaker 1: poor guy's suit and just ripped it off of them

361
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:54,240
Speaker 1: and brought it back up here. And then they also

362
00:20:54,320 --> 00:20:59,800
Speaker 1: used a sheet of polydimethyl salo sane p d MS.

363
00:21:00,040 --> 00:21:03,200
Speaker 1: Sounds great to me. Yeah. So they use these two

364
00:21:03,520 --> 00:21:06,359
Speaker 1: to rub against each other, and the polyester tends to

365
00:21:06,480 --> 00:21:12,280
Speaker 1: donate electrons and the PDMS tends to accept electrons. And

366
00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:16,320
Speaker 1: so while you're rubbing the surfaces together, they then you

367
00:21:16,480 --> 00:21:19,119
Speaker 1: then the next step is to mechanically separate them, right,

368
00:21:19,160 --> 00:21:21,879
Speaker 1: because because one one surface during this rubbing process become

369
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:25,080
Speaker 1: has gained a positive net charge and the other has

370
00:21:25,080 --> 00:21:28,800
Speaker 1: gained a positive negative. Yes, yes, but it was a

371
00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:30,840
Speaker 1: lot of it, so and we don't want to be

372
00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:33,399
Speaker 1: too negative on the show. But yeah, yeah, exactly, you

373
00:21:33,480 --> 00:21:36,040
Speaker 1: rub them together and then you mechanically separate them very quickly.

374
00:21:36,520 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 1: And uh while the that that's what generates the electric charges.

375
00:21:41,359 --> 00:21:43,320
Speaker 1: You can then the current flows through the gap in

376
00:21:43,359 --> 00:21:46,240
Speaker 1: between them when once they have been separated. Yeah, yeah,

377
00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:49,640
Speaker 1: so you do that, You've got the the electricity moving

378
00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:52,680
Speaker 1: through the load the same way the piezo electric one would.

379
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:55,560
Speaker 1: I mean, from this point forward, it's exactly the same

380
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:59,800
Speaker 1: as piezo electric because you're you're just harnessing electricity, but

381
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:03,920
Speaker 1: the generation is different. It's not that mechanical stress. It's

382
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:08,280
Speaker 1: the friction, which is a subtle but important difference. And

383
00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:12,000
Speaker 1: uh so, yeah, Wong pointed out said the smooth surfaces

384
00:22:12,080 --> 00:22:15,080
Speaker 1: rubbing together generated a charge, but using those micro pattern

385
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:20,080
Speaker 1: surfaces it increased the efficiency quite a bit um and

386
00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:24,560
Speaker 1: said that they were generating as much as eighteen vaults

387
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:28,800
Speaker 1: at about point one three microamps per square centimeter, which

388
00:22:28,840 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 1: is very promising. So another potential use of nanomaterials to

389
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 1: generate electricity. The peak that they found that that I

390
00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:38,680
Speaker 1: was reading in that in that one paper that I

391
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, was that up to a vaults. Yeah, so

392
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:45,040
Speaker 1: for for for a two square centimeter, right, yeah, so

393
00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 1: they what they've done is they have dramatically increased the

394
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,800
Speaker 1: efficiency since they first started looking into this. That's the

395
00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:54,119
Speaker 1: other interesting thing I find about the research these guys

396
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:56,399
Speaker 1: are doing is that they're not just sitting on their

397
00:22:56,480 --> 00:22:58,680
Speaker 1: laurels after they discover this and go with that. They're

398
00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:04,440
Speaker 1: exactly evolving that elect that that technique. Uh and it's

399
00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:09,880
Speaker 1: it's really exciting stuff now there's another way of generating

400
00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:12,720
Speaker 1: electricity on the nano scale with a nanogenerator, and there's

401
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:16,240
Speaker 1: probably more as well, but these are the that we've

402
00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:19,120
Speaker 1: read about anyway, and the third is pyroelectric. Right, So

403
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: you have to get a member of the Brotherhood of

404
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:25,440
Speaker 1: Evil Mutants who is on the nano scale and then

405
00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:31,919
Speaker 1: he just rides a bicycle really fast. That's that's pyro right. Okay,

406
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:33,880
Speaker 1: this is one of those moments where Lawrence looking at

407
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: me and our listeners have pointed these out, like, okay, no,

408
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:41,960
Speaker 1: pyroelectric is obviously it deals with heat, and it deals

409
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:46,479
Speaker 1: with changing temperatures. Although the material itself does not have

410
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:51,040
Speaker 1: to have uh heat differentials across it, but it does

411
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:53,679
Speaker 1: have to have some changes in temperature from one to

412
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 1: another for this to work. Um. And it was a

413
00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:00,240
Speaker 1: team of scientists who had developed a portable nanogener rader

414
00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:03,680
Speaker 1: that's capable of partially charging a lithium ion battery using

415
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:07,760
Speaker 1: ambient energy as a power source. That ambient energy being temperature.

416
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 1: He keep or we should say temperature, but because he's

417
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:15,840
Speaker 1: talking about the flow of temperature. But we apologized all

418
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,679
Speaker 1: about heat and temperature in a previous episode. Go and

419
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:22,719
Speaker 1: listen to refrigerators. I believe in refrigerators. Yeah. And so

420
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 1: the team of scientists included uh see Hong Wong, yeah,

421
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:32,320
Speaker 1: Yong Yan Chong and John ln Wong. Uh. And they

422
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 1: called the device PEG pe n G. So if Chris

423
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 1: were here, he would demand to say it's the device

424
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:43,120
Speaker 1: they called PEG as opposed to the device that goes

425
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,879
Speaker 1: ping um. And it stands for pe m G stands

426
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 1: for pyro electric nanogenerator. So there's a there's an exciting fact.

427
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 1: But so what they're doing is they're they're harnessing this

428
00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 1: pyro electric effect, which, if you're being really lead general,

429
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:05,000
Speaker 1: it means it's small changes in temperature have an electrical potential,

430
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:09,480
Speaker 1: and the nanogenerator harvests the unused potential energy from its

431
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 1: surroundings and then puts it to work just like the

432
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:15,680
Speaker 1: other two. You know, once you've harvested the electrons, then

433
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 1: it follows the same pathway as piece of electric and

434
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:23,440
Speaker 1: the tribo electric. Right right, We we honestly understand uh,

435
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 1: comparatively less about this method. Yeah, it takes a little

436
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:29,640
Speaker 1: bit more technically complicated. This this one gets, this one

437
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:33,840
Speaker 1: gets so complex as to be very intimidating. But I

438
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 1: can tell you there are two different pyroelectric effects. There's

439
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: one that we call the primary effect and one we

440
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:43,840
Speaker 1: call the secondary effect. The primary effect is essentially that

441
00:25:44,280 --> 00:25:48,119
Speaker 1: the change in temperature results in the electric dipole uh

442
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:52,679
Speaker 1: wobbling around, moving around at a greater oscillation magnitude around

443
00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:57,000
Speaker 1: equilibrium axis. And you know that sounds really confusing, but

444
00:25:57,040 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 1: to go into too much detail would make it even

445
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: more confusing because I can't it illustrated in any way

446
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:05,119
Speaker 1: in an audio podcast. But essentially it ends up creating

447
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: a flow of electrons due to decreased induced charges and electrodes. Now,

448
00:26:09,280 --> 00:26:12,920
Speaker 1: the secondary effect is way easier for me to understand

449
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:16,679
Speaker 1: because it's really just going back to piezo electric. The

450
00:26:16,760 --> 00:26:21,440
Speaker 1: secondary pyro electric effect is all about thermal deformation, which

451
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: is the idea that materials expanding contract depending upon the

452
00:26:25,840 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 1: presence or absence of h or the flow of heat. Right,

453
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:32,360
Speaker 1: So if I you know, it's just the same thing

454
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:34,520
Speaker 1: that you see on a hot summer day when the

455
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:37,720
Speaker 1: power lines are sagging. You know, everything's expanding in the heat,

456
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: and on a cold day those same power lines can

457
00:26:40,119 --> 00:26:43,200
Speaker 1: be very taught U same sort of thing, Um, that

458
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: deformation on the nanoscale is enough to change the nano

459
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 1: wires so that you get that piece of electric effect.

460
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 1: So it's still kind of piezo electric, but it's all

461
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 1: based on a temperature changes, not the movement. So yeah,

462
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:01,399
Speaker 1: so again you're it's getting back to that mechanical stress.

463
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 1: But the mechanical stress is caused by temperature changes as

464
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:08,879
Speaker 1: opposed to pressure or whatever. So once I got to

465
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:13,359
Speaker 1: that point, like, I like the secondary effect pyroelectric effect

466
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:17,439
Speaker 1: way better because I can get it, I grasp it. Uh.

467
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 1: And so now now let's talk about some of the

468
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: applications for this stuff. So we're talking about these tiny, tiny,

469
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 1: tiny electricity generators. What would that be good for We

470
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:29,119
Speaker 1: kind of touched on a couple already. Yeah, we we

471
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 1: already mentioned medical devices in uh in anything that you

472
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 1: need to implant that needs to run on a battery,

473
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 1: for example, uh, you know, a heart monitor or write,

474
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:43,679
Speaker 1: anything that would require maybe like an insulin. Yeah, so

475
00:27:43,840 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 1: essentially what you're you know, anything that you could think

476
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 1: of that would be an implant that would normally require

477
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 1: electricity from a battery. Just imagine that you have as

478
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: part of the surgical process that implants this this uh,

479
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 1: this device into you. You have this nano generator film

480
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:04,200
Speaker 1: that's also part of it, and that film is just

481
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:07,440
Speaker 1: all it's doing is taking energy that's being given off

482
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: by your heartbeat and that and converting the into electricity

483
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: that powers the implant. Or it's the power of your

484
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: breathing or the blood flowing through your veins, or the

485
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 1: constriction of blood vessels, or any of the million tiny

486
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 1: movements that your body is continually doing anyway. Yeah, and

487
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,119
Speaker 1: it's usually anything that's involuntary because you're gonna be doing

488
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:29,360
Speaker 1: that no matter why. Because we had to tap your

489
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: finger against your thumb head a million times a day,

490
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:33,959
Speaker 1: that would get a little bit tiresome, Right, what are

491
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: you doing staying alive? Yeah, It's just like if you

492
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: had to concentrate to make your heartbeat, or had to

493
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: concentrate to breathe, that would not that would not that

494
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: would that would defeat the purpose of the exercise. I'd

495
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 1: be leading an even less productive life because I could

496
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: be concentrated too much. But that's that's one potential use

497
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: of this. And again because of the zinc oxide, that's

498
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: something that could actually happen as the material does not

499
00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: react to the body in a negative way unless you have,

500
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of allergy to the material itself,

501
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: which is still possible. Um. Also, I mean we we

502
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: could get little little films of this stuff and use

503
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: it to, for example, help power our cell phones and

504
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: other mobile devices. Yeah, just imagine this stuff incorporated in

505
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 1: your clothing. So let's say that, you know, because you know,

506
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 1: I put a put a shirt on, and the shirt

507
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 1: actually has within, you know, sewn into the fabric, one

508
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: of these nanogenerators, and every time I'm moving around, I'm

509
00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 1: actually generating electricity, and maybe that's attached to a little

510
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: battery pack, and then I can recharge my cell phone

511
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 1: a little a little output plug in your hoodie that

512
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 1: just goes straight to your cell phone. And we could

513
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: eventually have fully incorporated electronics that are getting powered this way,

514
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 1: whether they are part of our clothing or something else

515
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:57,080
Speaker 1: like I could. I could easily imagine that. I mean,

516
00:29:57,120 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen anything like fabric displays or where

517
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:02,720
Speaker 1: double computers, this is the kind of stuff that would

518
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: allow us to power those devices without having to carry

519
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 1: a big, old heavy battery, which is one of the

520
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:13,720
Speaker 1: There there are several barriers to the wearable computer model

521
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: right now. That's a big one is that no one

522
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 1: wants to have to carry it, you know, four pound

523
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: battery because I mean, electronics are such that your laptop

524
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 1: can be extremely lightweight, but the battery is always the killer. Yeah,

525
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 1: and it in your laptop requires quite a bit of power,

526
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 1: whereas some of these other devices, uh, you know, everyone

527
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: wants the super sleek, sexy phone, right. That means you

528
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: have to have a very small battery in there. You

529
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:40,280
Speaker 1: have to make the device itself as efficient as possible,

530
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: so that it's very very careful about consuming power. Because

531
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 1: our battery technology has only extended so far, and and

532
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: we have not seen huge leaps in battery capacity. You

533
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 1: know that it has improved over time, but not at

534
00:30:56,440 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 1: the same rate as are improving in microprocessors for example,

535
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: right right, And it's and it's wonderful that they're rechargeable,

536
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:05,840
Speaker 1: that we have such terrific rechargeable batteries these days. However,

537
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 1: if we could get something that is continually getting power

538
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: from just moving around, yeah, and again, it could be again,

539
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: it could be harnessing the power of your breathing if

540
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: it's on your shirt, you know, so there you are breathing,

541
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: and the nanogenerators are so small that those even if

542
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 1: even if you think you're barely moving, it's enough to

543
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: generate electricity. It's just pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah, you could.

544
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: I could also see these being used in uh, in

545
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: other ways as well, Like can you imagine something that

546
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: is kind of like nano sized wind turbines, not so

547
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 1: much that they're actually turning, but you put them out

548
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:46,080
Speaker 1: in places connected to stuff where if it's a windy area,

549
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: then every single time of breeze blows by your generating electricity. Right.

550
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:51,360
Speaker 1: If you could coat the side of a house and

551
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: this stuff, then it could hypothetically power the house. Yeah,

552
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: or at least offset the needs that you have already. Right, Right,

553
00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 1: if you put this in a roadway or on a

554
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:04,960
Speaker 1: sidewalk and collected the motion of cars and steps going by, yep, yep, yeah,

555
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: every time, every time anyone would walk on it, put

556
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: pressure on it, that would actually help generate electricity. These

557
00:32:10,880 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 1: are ways where if we are able to to make

558
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 1: it efficient enough and robust enough, because obviously, when you're

559
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: talking about something like sidewalks or roads, it will have

560
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 1: to withstand a lot of punishment and most most of these,

561
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: most of these devices probably couldn't do that yet. They

562
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: they're more like, oh, you can use it about a

563
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 1: hundred thousand times and to be fine. Well, clearly, if

564
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 1: it's on a road and that road gets a lot

565
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: of traffic, hundred thousand goes by pretty quickly, right yeah. Yeah.

566
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 1: As of I mean, these these things are in testing.

567
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 1: As of early two thousand eight, the East Japan Railway

568
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: Company installed pies electric pads in piece Electric sorry and

569
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 1: uh in one of the ticket gates and station in

570
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: Tokyo and um uh, you know, trying to figure out

571
00:32:52,560 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 1: ways to make trains more energy efficient and and had

572
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 1: reasonable success. This is really cool stuff because again, if

573
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 1: it can offset our need for fossil fuels, then that

574
00:33:02,640 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: is a big benefit environmentally speaking, assuming of course, that

575
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 1: the production of the nanogenerators is an environmentally friendly production process,

576
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,600
Speaker 1: you know, which actually I have read zero research about.

577
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:16,200
Speaker 1: That is absolutely a thing to watch out for, especially

578
00:33:16,280 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: since they're talking about it in the testing phase. They're

579
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 1: not there's no production, so it's really hard to say.

580
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: But I mean, obviously if the production of the electricity

581
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: would be very clean, but the production of the actual

582
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: devices that generate the electricity could be very dangerous. We

583
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: I honestly don't know one way or the other, but

584
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:36,840
Speaker 1: that's something you always have to take into consideration. That's

585
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: why I'm always careful when I talk about clean energy.

586
00:33:40,960 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 1: You have to look at the big, big, big picture.

587
00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 1: You can't just look at how the electricity was generated.

588
00:33:45,840 --> 00:33:48,560
Speaker 1: You have to go beyond that. For example, in photovoltaics,

589
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:51,520
Speaker 1: when some of the materials used to make those solar

590
00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: power cells are very toxic, or the involved very expensive,

591
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:59,200
Speaker 1: very earth minerals, things like that. Yeah, Yeah, it's one

592
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: of those things that you have to take into consideration.

593
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 1: You have to look at the big picture, because if

594
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: you don't, then you're going to have other problems come

595
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: up down the line. So I always recommend everybody when

596
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: you when you look into these things, do try and

597
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:13,400
Speaker 1: go beyond just the story and see what's what's just

598
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 1: outside on the perimeter, because sometimes that will give you

599
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 1: enough information to say, well, this is really cool technology,

600
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: and I think we should pursue it because who knows

601
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:23,400
Speaker 1: what we could learn. But ultimately I don't see it

602
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 1: being practical because of x Y and z uh and

603
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:29,879
Speaker 1: x Y and z might just be because look at

604
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,840
Speaker 1: politics just in general, that is that is always an

605
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 1: issue as well. I say this as I watch the

606
00:34:37,400 --> 00:34:43,320
Speaker 1: United States totally cut the space program to shreds. But hey,

607
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to talk about that because

608
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:49,319
Speaker 1: it makes me cry. Anyway, that's probably a whole another

609
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,320
Speaker 1: episode of a whole another episode. We just did episodes

610
00:34:52,320 --> 00:34:54,880
Speaker 1: about space travel anyway. So and we've done some pretty

611
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:56,919
Speaker 1: awesome stuff, and I'm sure we will do awesome stuff again.

612
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 1: It's just this will be a little lull, that's all,

613
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:02,399
Speaker 1: all right, eyes Well, anyway, enough of that commentary. Yeah,

614
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: and that super positive note. Uh And like I said,

615
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 1: you know that these are super cool discoveries that these

616
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 1: guys are making. And uh, and I'm really looking forward

617
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 1: to learning more about it and seeing how it it

618
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 1: plays out, especially when we start getting into even greater

619
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:22,400
Speaker 1: detail about how nanotechnology can change our lives. We've just

620
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:25,680
Speaker 1: scratched the surface. I have a feeling that twenty years

621
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: from now, we'll all be laughing at how limited our

622
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 1: scope was when we were thinking about nanotechnology, right right. Uh.

623
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:34,800
Speaker 1: Dr Long is talking about in the next five years

624
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: these being commercial products. That's phenomenal. I mean five years.

625
00:35:38,719 --> 00:35:41,040
Speaker 1: That's no time at all, you know, it's it's definitely

626
00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: not the standard scientific response of twenty to thirty years, right, yeah, exactly.

627
00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:48,359
Speaker 1: So guys, uh, this was a great topic. I really

628
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 1: had a lot of fun with it. So if you

629
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:53,359
Speaker 1: have any episode ideas, you you know, think this would

630
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:55,719
Speaker 1: be a fantastic thing for them to talk about, let

631
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 1: us know. Get in touch with us. We have an

632
00:35:57,640 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 1: email address that you can write to. That email address

633
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: is tech stuff at Discovery dot com. Or get in

634
00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 1: touch with us through the miracle of social media. We're

635
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 1: on Facebook, we're on Twitter. At both of those locations.

636
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,240
Speaker 1: You can find us with the handle tech stuff hs

637
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:15,800
Speaker 1: W and Lauren and I will talk to you again

638
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:23,360
Speaker 1: really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics.

639
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:34,279
Speaker 1: Is it how staff works dot com