WEBVTT - The Big Deal About Little Generators 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:07.040 Get in touch with technology with text stuff from how 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:15.320 stuff Works dot com. Hey, they're and welcome to text stuff. 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:18.639 I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Laing, And today we wanted 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:25.480 to talk about something pretty darn cool, nanogenerators. What are nanogenerators, Jonathan? Well, 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:27.600 you know, in order to understand what a nanogenerator is, 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.080 it helps if we define some terms really quickly, all right, 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:34.200 because because nano and it clearly means tiny, it means 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:37.320 it's it's one billion. Yeah, if you talk about nanometer, 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:39.280 it's a one billionth of a meter yep. So we're 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.320 talking about the nano scale. You're you're saying that stuff 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:47.000 that exists gently speaking, in between one and a thousand 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.879 nanometers somewhere in there, and usually it's between one and 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:52.440 five d nanometers. That tends to be the area we 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:56.920 talked about. Now, the nanoscale is is one order larger 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:01.240 than the atomic scale, right, So even at the nanoscale, 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.920 atoms are still tiny, but the nano scale is much 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.200 smaller than what we are accustomed to, and we need 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:10.920 very special equipment to work with stuff and even see 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:13.200 stuff that's on the nano scale. Right, Yeah, Just to 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.600 give you an idea. Human hair is usually between about 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:19.880 six micrometers wide, which means that you would have to 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:25.080 divide a hair at least sixty thousand times lengthwise in 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:29.440 half in order to make it one one nanometer right exactly. 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.039 Yeah nanometer. Yeah, it takes. It takes very small. It 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:35.119 takes one tho nanometers to make one micrometer. That will 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.199 become important later on in our conversation. So, yeah, super small. 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.200 Think of the smallest thing. You know, it's smaller than that, 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:44.880 way small, unless you're thinking of like an atom, in 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:47.240 which case you went too far, turn around, go back, 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.279 come back. But yeah, So so we're talking the nano scale, 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.960 very tiny stuff, and there's a lot of interest in nanotechnology, 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.160 this idea of being able to create things that work 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:02.800 on this nanoscale for all sorts of applications, everything from 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:09.040 actual mechanical applications, biological applications uh and uh, and even 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.880 stuff like you can find nanoparticles and stuff like like sunblock, 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.040 you know, has nanoparticles of zinc in it to help 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:21.359 block ultra violet radiation. Well, when you talk about building 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.520 things on that nanoscale and you're talking about actual stuff 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.400 that's doing work, it has to get power from somewhere. 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:32.480 So where do you get power from? If you are 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:36.040 this tiny? You can't go to a nano gas station 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.400 and fill up with nano fuel as far as I know, 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.720 not that we're personally aware of. Now, So the nanogenerator 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:48.240 is this this idea of a device that uses stuff 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:51.640 on the nanoscale in order to generate small amounts of 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:56.320 electricity by converting energy from one format into electricity. Now, 0:02:56.360 --> 0:03:00.480 remember we cannot create or destroy energy. We can merely 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.760 convert it from one form into another. And in this 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:06.800 case when nanogenerators, there are a couple of different kinds 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.760 of energy that we can look at to convert into 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:15.160 electrical energy. The main one is mechanical energy, so through 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.720 piezo electric piezo electric materials. Yeah, so if you've ever 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.679 heard this term, piezo electric or as I sometimes say, 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:27.840 piezo electric because I'm pretentious, or piezoelectric because pie is delicious. 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:33.680 Pie has been so long, guys, I'm sorry, Hi, alright, 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.280 So anyway, Yeah, so piezo electric materials, this is this 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:39.760 is a kind of material that when you apply a 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:44.960 mechanical stress to it, it essentially emits electricity and the 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:49.240 reverse is also true if you were to apply an 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.640 electric charge to a piezo electric material, it would then 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:56.040 move in some way, vibrate in some way. Right, All 0:03:56.040 --> 0:04:01.040 of your quartz watches, for example, contain piezo electric crys crystals. Yeah, yeah, exactly, 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:05.080 you get this little uh. You apply a very specific 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.080 amount of electricity to this quartz watch, and it vibrates 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:11.240 in a very specific way. It's it's predictable and it 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.720 will do that every single time. And that's you know 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.360 why they are great for keeping time. So as long 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.080 as you've worked out all the math, it should it 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:21.960 should keep time very very well, of course, you know, 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.240 until something goes wrong with one of the other mechanisms 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:26.200 in it. Yeah, and then then it's time to buy 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:27.960 a new watch. That's how that's what time it is. 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.680 You you still know what time it is, just it's anyway. 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:34.880 So piece of electric materials very useful when it comes 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.799 to nanogenerators. What you have to do is create something 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:42.920 that can take a mechanical stress pinching, bending in some way, 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:47.480 and create a convert that mechanical energy into electrical energy, 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.160 and then you can apply that electrical energy to what 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.599 we call a load in electrical terms electronics, you know, 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.280 you have an electronic load that essentially means it's going 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.080 through some sort of circuit in order to do work 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:01.599 of some kind. That might be lighting up an LED, 0:05:02.240 --> 0:05:05.760 or it might be helping recharge a battery, or it 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.520 could be powering medical device. But we'll get into the 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.400 applications later on. So that's the main one. And in fact, 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:15.400 if you go to how stuff works dot com, first 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:19.159 of all, you're awesome because it's a great website and 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.400 we've got some amazing articles on there. One of those 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:26.520 amazing articles is how nanogenerators work, and the focus on 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:29.960 that is the piece of electric nanogenerator. But we'll talk 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:32.840 about a couple of other types as well in this podcast. 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:36.120 And Uh, so you've got that, You've got that nano size, 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:40.040 you know, it's tiny, tiny, tiny, You've got the generator part, 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:45.719 which is the electricity. Where did this idea come from? Well, 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.040 right down the road, as it turns out, from us. Yeah, 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:51.960 a lot of the research has been done by doctor 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.560 Zo Lingen of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Yeah, Georgia 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.240 Tech that is the rival school to the college I 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:01.000 went to. Uh, they are their mascot is the Yellow 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:06.480 Jackets and we hate them. I go Bulldogs. I went 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.640 to the University of Florida. Oh I hate you too. 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:16.719 That's tough really imagine there was a there was a 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:19.800 fullback that I just thought looked exactly like you who 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:23.840 played for Florida anyway. Yeah, so, Dr John ling Wong 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.120 of Georgia Tech has done a lot of work, a 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.479 lot of amazing research in nano generators, piece of electric 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.800 and other kinds as well. And uh, in fact, it, 0:06:34.920 --> 0:06:37.400 like I said, it's just down the road. So I 0:06:37.440 --> 0:06:39.800 really hope that at some point I will be able 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.599 to visit the Georgia Tech campus and actually maybe speak 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:46.520 with him, because yeah, the guy has done some phenomenal work. 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:49.400 There are a lot of papers that are available for 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:52.880 free online that you can read. Georgia Tech hosts many 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:55.839 of them, and you can actually read the scientific papers. 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:58.480 I will go ahead and give you guys a warning. 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.760 They are not meant for They're extremely scientific. Yeah, if 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:08.800 you're not terribly familiar with with with electrical engineering or physics, uh, 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.160 they can they can get very dense, very quickly, but 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.640 they are uh, you know, the this is the leading 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:17.920 research in this field. So it's very interesting stuff. We'll 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:21.200 toss up some lengths on social Yeah, definitely. So let's 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:26.360 talk specifically about the piezoelectric nanogenerator and what's going on there. 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.360 So they're using they've used lots of different materials to 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:34.320 try and do this because, uh, there are several different 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:39.120 kinds of materials that exhibit piezo electric qualities, mostly crystals 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.000 and ceramics of various kinds. Yeah, so you know that 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:44.720 you've got you've got some choices there to start with. 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.320 How do you narrow that down? Well, one of the 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:50.640 things that Wonga and his team were looking at were 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.840 stuff that that would not be too brittle, because if 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:56.800 you're applying a lot of mechanical stress to it and 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.360 you want to have this have a practical application, something 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.120 that's flexible that has some give and doesn't break easily 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.520 would be very useful, Yeah, because otherwise otherwise you really 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:08.400 get it once and then after that it's like, now 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:11.320 that was a great generator for one second. Yeah, Yeah, 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:15.120 And that might be important for some applications, but not 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:20.320 so much for anything. Uh. And they also wanted to 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:25.160 find considering that some of the the applications, potential applications 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.600 could be medical and might even require a device to 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.760 be implanted in a person. They wanted to find something 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:36.040 that would be biocompatible, basically non toxic. You know, the 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:38.600 goal was sort of less toxic than the stuff that 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:44.280 goes into the batteries that are already in medical implantable devices. Exactly. Yes, yea, 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.760 So it's that was definitely a goal. And so when 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:50.880 they were looking into different materials, the one that seemed 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:52.920 to be the most promising and the one that they've 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:57.000 done much of their work on is zinc oxide. So 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:01.560 they ended up creating a nano generator using zinc oxide 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:04.079 as the basis for it. Now, nano generator has a 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:08.240 couple of different parts. Uh, nano wires are really important parts. 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:12.040 Nano wires are these incredibly they're exactly what you would think. 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:16.120 They're wires that are on the nanoscale. These are measuring 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.480 from about a hundred to three hundred nanometers in diameter. Yeah, 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:20.880 so if you're if you were to look at a 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:22.880 cross section of these, first of all, you'd have to 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.360 have like a scanning microscope electron scanning microscope to be 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.840 able to see it. But between a hundred and three 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:30.920 d nimeters in diameter. If you were to do that 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.959 cross section their length, they are actually much much, much 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.960 much longer longer than they are wide, about a hundred 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.040 microns in length. Yeah. Now remember a micron is one 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.559 thousand nanometers, so you're talking about a hundred thousand nanometers 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:48.319 in length and a hundred nanometers in diameter. So the 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.080 ratio there is pretty incredible. Yeah. Yeah, but but but 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.240 it's still it's still I mean, the length is still 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.920 only about the same width as two human hairs put together. Yeah, 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.160 if you put two human hair side by side, that's 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:06.000 how long these wires are. So we're still talking super tiny. Yeah. 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.480 I can't even imagine trying to do research with something 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.200 that's small. Yes, you have to have some very specific 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:15.960 equipment or incredibly steady hands. I'm amazed. I think it's 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:19.320 gonna be the equipment thing. Probably, Yeah, I can't imagine 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.960 someone actually, uh sorry I slipped with the Tweezers. We 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:27.200 lost all our research. So yeah, they took these zinc 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.719 ox side nano wires and they put it on to 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:37.800 a an etched flexible surface that is called a substrate, which, 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:40.760 if you are familiar with things like semiconductors, this is 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:45.760 going to start sounding familiar. Um. And uh. They then 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:48.679 had some other components that are made from from silicone 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.079 to help with this, uh, to create on an electrode, 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.439 because obviously you need something that's going to collect. Yeah, 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:57.679 that's gonna act as like a harness to attact like 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.320 the conduit for that electric So you need to have 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.719 something that the electricity can flow through. Otherwise all you're 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.360 doing is generating electric charge that doesn't really go anywhere. 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:12.360 It will just redistribute to wherever the the electrons can go, 0:11:12.760 --> 0:11:14.800 right yeah, yeah, So you've got kind of a sandwich 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:20.240 going here. Yeah, and so you've got this zigzag electrode pattern. Uh. 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:24.439 And when you start to apply pressure to that nanogenerator, 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.600 those nano wires all start to flex. And because of 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:32.920 that piezo electric nature of zinc oxide, which also acts 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:35.840 as a conductor, that's another reason why they chose that material. 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.200 When it when they flex, they start to generate that 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.280 electrical charge that that nature of the mechanical energy and 0:11:42.280 --> 0:11:46.960 the electrical energy starts to come into effect. Now the electrode, 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:50.679 that silicon electrode ends up capturing that charge and it 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.439 carries it through the load the circuit that nanogenerator is 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:58.880 attached to, and uh, and there might be several electrodes, 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.280 lots and lots and lots of nano wires in a 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.920 millions millions of nana wires. So you're you're talking because 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:06.760 I mean clearly, if you just had one nano wire 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:09.440 and one electrode, the amount of electricity you would draw 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:11.559 off of that would be so tiny as to be 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.520 difficult to put into words. So by collecting all of 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.200 these and putting it all together into a larger form factor, 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:22.319 you're going to generate more electricity. Uh. The I remember 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:26.719 reading at least in the early stages, they their efficiency 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.840 of converting mechanical energy into electrical energy was between seventeen 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:34.720 and thirty percent. So that's a small amount that you're thinking. 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.760 You know, the whole purpose of this is to create 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.360 something that's incredibly sensitive, because you've got on such a 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.320 small scale that even the smallest movement is going to 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.120 create electrics. Something something like a like a heartbeat, or 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:48.560 the touch of a finger, or even a even a 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.120 not even stiff breeze, a gentle breeze could be activating this. 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:55.520 The constriction of a blood vessel or even the flow 0:12:55.679 --> 0:12:59.320 of blood through a vessel could be enough to generate 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:03.520 a significant for this size amount of electricity, and depending 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:06.480 upon what you you need that electricity for, it may 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:09.400 be enough to meet all of your needs, or at 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:11.640 least enough of your needs. So that the battery, because 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.080 I think we're never going to get fully away from batteries, 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:16.400 but the battery would be more of a backup than 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.160 something to to kind of add in in between or 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:26.800 in case something doesn't sure. Yeah, the peak that they've recorded, 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:29.480 according to UM a paper that they published in two 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:31.960 thousand and twelve was that from a from a one 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:36.880 centimeter square circuit of this stuff, they recorded a high 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:41.520 level of thirty seven volt output um, which you know, 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:43.760 for for comparison to double a battery is what like 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.560 like one point five and a car battery is twelve. So, 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.640 I mean, yeah, it's pretty impressive when you're thinking about 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.720 this tiny scale in lab standards that that's you know, 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.080 a separate thing from real life experience. It's not a 0:13:57.120 --> 0:13:59.959 field tests, right, but it's pretty impressive. Yeah. And here 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.720 here's something directly from one of Wong's papers. He says, 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:07.880 the coupling of piezo electric and semiconducting properties, and zinc 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.319 oxide creates a strain field and charge separation across the 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.320 nano wire as a result of its bending. The mechanism 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:16.520 of the power generator relies on the coupling of piece 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:18.960 of electric and semi conducting properties of zinc oxide, as 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.760 well as the formation of a shot key barrier between 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:26.560 the metal and zinc oxide contacts. So shot key barriers. 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:28.200 This is one of those things that I'm not going 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.240 to get into a lot of detail because frankly, it 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:34.760 goes well beyond my own understanding of electrical engineering and physics. 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:40.080 But it's essentially a potential barrier, potential being electric electrical potential, 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.600 not not that potentially this could be a barrier to us, 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:47.119 not like that. Uh. And it's formed at the junction 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:51.400 of a metal and a semiconductor. So when you get 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.640 to those junctions, that's where you have the shot key barrier. 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.720 And it can act like a diode, which means, if 0:14:56.760 --> 0:15:00.640 you're familiar with electric electronics, a diode h allows current 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.080 to pass through in one direction but prevents it from 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:07.120 passing through the other way. So that's generally speaking, while 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:09.400 shot key barriers, it gets way more technical than that, 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:10.880 and I know that all the people out there who 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.480 are schooled in electronics and and in this kind of 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:18.000 stuff are probably screaming at me for oversimplifying it to 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:21.840 that extent. But frankly, uh, I read about it for 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:26.520 about an hour and watched a full presentation from a 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.920 university in India about it, and that's what I came 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:33.480 away with. So, because this is not my area of expertise, 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.280 but it is really fascinating And and just to be clear, 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.000 while a lot of our research does follow the work 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.680 that Wong and his team have done, there are other 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.440 teams out there that have also explored the piece of 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.520 electric nanogenerator model, and and some of them are doing 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:54.200 a slightly different research. There's one team, um, a combination 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.400 of Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania, McAlpine and 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:03.400 Pira Hit. Yes. Um, they've been dealing with M. Dirk 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:07.320 Nate tighten ate. Is that lead? Lead? I have no 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:09.840 idea what it is. You know what that is? Well, 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.320 you know, it's stuff. It's stuff. It's a it's a 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.440 it's a piece of electric stuff. Yeah. They also are 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.680 creating a nano ribbons. All right, Well, it's this this 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.840 PCT is extremely brittle, and they figured out a way 0:16:21.960 --> 0:16:24.800 that when it's a specifically shaped it can stretch up 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:29.760 to ten percent without breaking and uh and therefore be useful. Right, 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:32.280 And and these nano ribbons are that shape that they 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:34.840 have come up with. That, Yeah, because usually this is 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.760 that they're using a material that that traditionally you would 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.240 not think would be very useful because it's very brittle, 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:44.120 But because they have shaped it in this way, it 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.160 could actually work in this piece of electric nanogenerator format 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.680 because it doesn't break immediately upon use. All Right, They 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.240 fix these nano ribbons to UM to stretched silicone rubber 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:58.040 surfaces UM, and when those surfaces are relaxed, it creates 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:00.640 a buckle in the nano ribbons, a bend in the 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.880 nano ribbons without actually breaking them. And uh then then 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:09.359 in their bent state, any movement within them generates electricity. Yeah, 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.159 it's pretty awesome. I mean, these are really creative ways 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:17.400 of designing these sort of tiny, tiny generators. Now, those 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:21.240 are the that's the main kind of nanogenerator we talk 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:23.320 about in the article on how stuff works. But like 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:25.960 I said earlier, there are a couple of other methods 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.720 and we're going to talk about those in just a minute, 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:31.359 but before we do, let's take a quick moment to 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.840 thank our sponsors. All right, and we're back. So we've 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.480 got the piece of electric stuff down. We're experts, we 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:39.560 know all about it. Yeah, yeah we can. You can 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.639 ask us anything and we will him and haw. But 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.160 but we'll pretend like we know we will. We will 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.400 look it up on the internet. Real good. It's super 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.480 fascinating stuff. And I am familiar with piece of electricity 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.040 or I shouldn't say piece electricity, but piece of electric materials. 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:56.439 But this was this was at a level of detail 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:58.959 that would beyond anything I had read before. But like 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.560 we said, that's not the only only way. There's also 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.800 a kind of nanogenerator. And again Wong has done a 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:09.320 lot of research in all of these called triboelectric generators. 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:13.040 And uh, this is this is basically static electricity. Yeah, 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.680 that's that's it's friction based, right exactly. So there's still 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:19.680 a mechanical element to it, but it's not the mechanical 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:23.800 stress that is converted into electricity. It's rather that the 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.639 act of friction ends up generating this electric charge that 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:32.080 is then harnessed to go into a circuit. Right. It's 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:35.359 that it's the fact that some materials can can gain 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.960 or lose or tend to gain or lose electrons upon 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:40.720 contact with other materials. Yeah, so you have to use 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:45.160 two different kinds of generally speaking plastic materials and rub 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:47.720 those against each other. Uh. They found that if you 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.720 use two of the same type, you would not get 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:53.840 the kind of right. And and you know, and you can. 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.639 I'm sure that everyone here has tested this, uh, you 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.359 know in an annoying or hazardous way in terms of 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:01.719 you know, they're delivering a small shock to a sibling 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:04.520 by rubbing your feet on the carpet and going over 0:19:04.560 --> 0:19:07.840 and poking them, or the rubbing of the balloon against 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.240 the hair, right, right, Yeah, or or even something something 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:16.560 more unfortunate and dangerous like uh, if you're if you're 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.560 dealing with computers with with computer enters, right, and you 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.720 haven't grounded your having grounded yourself, and you know it's 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.440 my Faraday cages are really really cool. It's it's also 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:27.840 why if you ever decided to build your own computer 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:29.800 and you're doing it from scratch and you're getting ready 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:34.640 to put that microprocessor into the motherboard, ground yourself first, please, 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.640 because otherwise that that lovely stuff that's saying in front 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:42.439 of you maybe rendered useless with one unfortunate zap. Important 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:45.480 safety tip, thanks Sagon. Yeah, you're welcome. Tell him about 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:50.240 the twinkie. So the tribal electric generators, they they harness 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:56.439 this stack electricity essentially, but they to to maximize it. 0:19:56.840 --> 0:19:59.080 Wong and his team discovered something interesting. They found that 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:01.840 if you took the these two different kinds of essentially 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:06.040 plastic materials polymers, these polymers, and if you were to 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:09.159 put on the sides that are rubbing against each other, 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.160 if you were to put little tiny pyramids, that would 0:20:12.160 --> 0:20:16.720 actually maximize the electric field that you would generate, and 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.720 so it would become more efficient. Otherwise, if it was smooth, 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:22.480 it would still work, it just wouldn't generate as much. 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:26.400 But yeah, having the greater surface area. Yeah, so they 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:28.879 were actually using uh, all right, let's see if I 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.480 can do this, because I I even wrote out how 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:34.960 I was supposed to say this very long word, so 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.760 this could be disaster, folks, strap yourselves in. But they 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.800 used a sheet of polyester. So that's not the long one. 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.560 That's the easy one. So they went back into the seventies. 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:48.399 Very concerned, I went back into the seventies, took some 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:52.000 poor guy's suit and just ripped it off of them 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:54.240 and brought it back up here. And then they also 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:59.800 used a sheet of polydimethyl salo sane p d MS. 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.200 Sounds great to me. Yeah. So they use these two 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.359 to rub against each other, and the polyester tends to 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:12.280 donate electrons and the PDMS tends to accept electrons. And 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:16.320 so while you're rubbing the surfaces together, they then you 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:19.119 then the next step is to mechanically separate them, right, 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:21.879 because because one one surface during this rubbing process become 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:25.080 has gained a positive net charge and the other has 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.800 gained a positive negative. Yes, yes, but it was a 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:30.840 lot of it, so and we don't want to be 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:33.399 too negative on the show. But yeah, yeah, exactly, you 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.040 rub them together and then you mechanically separate them very quickly. 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:41.320 And uh while the that that's what generates the electric charges. 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:43.320 You can then the current flows through the gap in 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:46.240 between them when once they have been separated. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:49.640 so you do that, You've got the the electricity moving 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:52.680 through the load the same way the piezo electric one would. 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:55.560 I mean, from this point forward, it's exactly the same 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.800 as piezo electric because you're you're just harnessing electricity, but 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:03.920 the generation is different. It's not that mechanical stress. It's 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:08.280 the friction, which is a subtle but important difference. And 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.000 uh so, yeah, Wong pointed out said the smooth surfaces 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:15.080 rubbing together generated a charge, but using those micro pattern 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:20.080 surfaces it increased the efficiency quite a bit um and 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:24.560 said that they were generating as much as eighteen vaults 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.800 at about point one three microamps per square centimeter, which 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:34.320 is very promising. So another potential use of nanomaterials to 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.280 generate electricity. The peak that they found that that I 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:38.680 was reading in that in that one paper that I 0:22:38.760 --> 0:22:42.040 mentioned earlier, was that up to a vaults. Yeah, so 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.040 for for for a two square centimeter, right, yeah, so 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:47.560 they what they've done is they have dramatically increased the 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:50.800 efficiency since they first started looking into this. That's the 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:54.119 other interesting thing I find about the research these guys 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:56.399 are doing is that they're not just sitting on their 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:58.680 laurels after they discover this and go with that. They're 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:04.440 exactly evolving that elect that that technique. Uh and it's 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:09.880 it's really exciting stuff now there's another way of generating 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:12.720 electricity on the nano scale with a nanogenerator, and there's 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:16.240