Could we use small devices like watches, drones, mobile phones without exchanging its battery or recharging it? The answer is, “Probably Yes”. But How? Physicists invented a way to harvest energy by using Graphene at room temperature. In that way, we could be able to consume energy limitlessly. Before all let’s see what is Graphene.
What is Graphene?
Graphene is a single layer of Carbon atoms which means it has a 2-dimensional structure. Graphene is incredibly stretchy and it’s 100 times stronger than steel while having a thickness of one atom. It’s almost completely transparent and a fine electricity and heat conductor. That’s why Scientists cited Graphene as “Magic Material”.
Indeed, the idea of Graphene was first explored in 1947 by Canadian Physicist, P.R. Wallace. However, Graphene was only a theory in books until 2004, when Andre Geim, Konstantin Novoselov of the University of Manchester invented the first sample of it from Graphite. They two won the 2010 Nobel Prize in physics for invention.
Thermal Motion
Thermal motion is the random motion of microparticles like molecules, atoms, electrons because of temperature. Graphene’s thermal motion increased at room temperature.
How scientists designed a circuit for clean limitless energy from Graphene
A team of scientists at the University of Arkansas has successfully developed a circuit to convert Graphene’s thermal motion to electrical current. This makes a promise for the energy harvesting concept. They did a ton of experiments to succeed.
They took two electrodes and put a graphene sheet in the middle. Then, thanks to the thermal motion in the graphene it starts to move up and down. In this way, if the Graphene has a negative charge, it will be able to send the electrons on the electrodes up and down. That makes an Alternating Current (AC) from the circuit.
A tiny pinhead can hold about 20,000 circuits like this. From that alone can generate about ten Microwatt of electricity. As we mentioned before, the circuit makes AC. But scientists have been able to use diodes and capacitors to convert it into Direct Current (DC) and to increase electricity also. The most important thing about this circuit is that it does not need any external power and or to contain a wear part. So this circuit can supply electricity for as long as we want. If millions of these tiny circuits could be built on 1-mm by 1-mm chip, they could serve as a replacement for low-power batteries.
This technology allows devices that require a small voltage to be used without batteries. That would be watches, sensors, and even pacemakers for heart patients.
We couldn’t use this technology in activities like electrifying electric cars in near future. “An energy-harvesting circuit based on graphene could be incorporated into a chip to provide clean, limitless, low-voltage power for small devices or sensors,” said Paul. M. Thibado, Professor of the University of Arkansas and lead researcher of the invention.
In the early stages, the problem was producing Graphene economically. A few years back, 1 kilogram of Graphene costs $300,000. But it only takes $100,800 to manufacture 1 kilogram of Graphene in 2015. Due to the optimized techniques of production, specialists anticipate prices will reduce even more, and eventually, it will become as low as raw material, Graphite.
Richard Feynman’s saying on Thermal Motion
At the early stages of this research, the idea of using the thermal motion of Graphene was a controversial one for the science world because of Great physicist Richard Feynman’s famous assertion. He once said the thermal motion of atoms can’t do work itself. But scientists of Arkansas proved, that assertion was wrong by successfully converting electrical current from the thermal motion of Graphene.
The research done by the University of Arkansas has been published in PHYSICAL REVIEW E. Now you guys could refer to that from the above link.
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