Auckland Bioengineering Institute’s Biomimetics Lab is going to bring a radical change in the way by which batteries work. The team of researchers at the lab is researching on power generators, which can use human movements and other natural energy. They are working on wearable batteries, which will be charged with the movements of human muscles. If this research is going to be in practice, then there will be no need to change or charge batteries.
As described in American Institute of Physics’ journal Applied Physics Letters, researchers at the lab are working on dielectric elastomer generators, or DEGs. According to them this generator has high potential for producing energy from muscle movements. They can be used to develop soft and light batteries, which can produce energy from human muscle movements as their mechanical properties match human muscles. These batteries will be wearable and form hugging so that they can work efficiently.
Thomas McKay, a Ph.D. candidate involved with the soft generator research at the Biomimetics Lab said,
We’ve developed a low-cost power generator with an unprecedented combination of softness, flexibility, and low mass. These characteristics provide an opportunity to harvest energy from environmental sources with much greater simplicity than previously possible.
The researchers at the Biomimetics Lab are on the way to create handy batteries, which can easily be fixed closely to living things, so that they can yield energy. The best part is being soft and light and closely fixed with body, they are nearly invisible as they may be unnoticeable and will work closely associated with living beings.
They are going to make for one more important concern that is environment. There is no need to worry about making environs polluted by used batteries, as these batteries need not to be discarded, as they will charge themselves from the human body.
Via: USA Today
