New nanogenerators achieve 140-fold power density gain, could rival solar cells

Thanks to new nanotechnology developed at the University of Surrey, your early morning run could soon help harvest enough electricity to power your wearable devices.

Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) has developed highly energy-efficient, flexible nanogenerators that demonstrate a 140-fold increase in power density compared to conventional nanogenerators.

ATI researchers believe that this development could lead to nano-devices that are as efficient as today’s solar cells.

Energy conversion

Surrey’s devices can convert small amounts of everyday mechanical energy, like motion, into a significantly higher electrical power, similar to how an amplifier boosts sound in an electronic system.

For instance, if a traditional nanogenerator produces ten milliwatts of power, this new technology could increase that output to over 1,000 milliwatts, making it suitable for energy harvesting in various everyday applications.

ATI’s nanogenerator works like a relay team – instead of one electrode (the runner) passing energy (charge) by itself.

Each runner collects a baton (charge), adds more, and then passes all batons to the next runner, boosting the overall energy collected in a process called the charge regeneration effect.

“The dream of nanogenerators is to capture and use energy from everyday movements, like your morning run, mechanical vibrations, ocean waves, or opening a door. The key innovation with our nanogenerator is that we’ve fine-tuned the technology with 34 tiny energy collectors using a laser technique that can scale up for manufacture to increase energy efficiency further,” said Md Delowar Hussain, a postgraduate research student at ATI.

He added that what’s exciting is that our little device with high energy harvesting density could one day rival the power of solar panels and be used to run anything from self-powered sensors to smart home systems that run without ever needing a battery change.

Turning energy into electricity

The device is a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) that can capture and turn the energy from simple, everyday movements into electricity.

They use materials that become electrically charged when they come into contact and then separate – similar to when you rub a balloon on your hair, which sticks due to static electricity.

“We are soon going to launch a company focused on self-powered, non-invasive healthcare sensors using triboelectric technology. Innovations like these will enable us to drive new spin-out activities in sustainable health tech, improve sensitivity, and emphasize industrial scalability,” said Dr Bhaskar Dudem, Research Fellow.

With the ever-increasing technology around us, it is predicted that in the next few years, we will have over 50 billion Internet of Things (IoT) devices that will need energy to be powered.

Local green energy solutions are needed, and this could be a convenient wireless technology that harnesses energy from any mechanical movements to power small devices.

It allows the scientific and engineering community to find innovative and sustainable solutions to global challenges.

“We are incredibly excited about the potential of these nanogenerators to transform how we think about energy. You could also imagine these devices are used in IoT-based self-powered smart systems like autonomous wireless operations, security monitoring, and smart home systems, or even for supporting dementia patients, an area in which the University of Surrey has great expertise,” said Professor Ravi Silva, director, Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) and Head of NanoElectronics Centre.