{"id":304668,"date":"2010-02-10T12:47:20","date_gmt":"2010-02-10T17:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologytransfertactics.com\/content\/?p=5855"},"modified":"2010-02-10T12:47:20","modified_gmt":"2010-02-10T17:47:20","slug":"princeton%e2%80%99s-energy-harvesting-rubber-sheets-could-power-pacemakers-mobile-phones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/304668","title":{"rendered":"Princeton\u2019s energy-harvesting rubber sheets could power pacemakers, mobile phones"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Power-generating rubber films developed by Princeton University engineers could harness natural body movements such as breathing and walking to power pacemakers, mobile phones, and other electronic devices. The material, composed of ceramic nanoribbons embedded onto silicone rubber sheets, generates electricity when flexed and is highly efficient at converting mechanical energy to electrical energy. Shoes made of the material may one day harvest the energy produced by walking and running to power mobile electrical devices. Placed against the lungs, sheets of the material could use breathing motions to power pacemakers, obviating the current need for surgical replacement of batteries that power the devices. A paper on the material was published online in <a href=\"http:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/abs\/10.1021\/nl903377u\" ><em>Nano Letters<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Princeton team is the first to successfully combine silicone and nanoribbons of lead zirconate titanate (PZT), a ceramic material that is piezoelectric &#8212; generating an electrical voltage when pressure is applied. Of all piezoelectric materials, PZT is the most efficient, able to convert 80% of the mechanical energy applied to it into electrical energy. The researchers first fabricated PZT nanoribbons &#8212; strips so narrow that 100 fit side-by-side in a one-millimeter space. In a separate process, they embedded these ribbons into clear sheets of silicone rubber, creating what they call &#8220;piezo-rubber chips.&#8221; Because the silicone is biocompatible, it&#8217;s already used for cosmetic implants and medical devices. &#8220;The new electricity-harvesting devices could be implanted in the body to perpetually power medical devices and the body wouldn&#8217;t reject them,&#8221; says Michael McAlpine, PhD, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton. In addition to generating electricity when flexed, the material also flexes in response to electrical current &#8212; a property that opens the door to other applications, such as use in microsurgical devices, McAlpine says.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2010\/01\/100127152504.htm\">Science Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Power-generating rubber films developed by Princeton University engineers could harness natural body movements such as breathing and walking to power pacemakers, mobile phones, and other electronic devices. The material, composed of ceramic nanoribbons embedded onto silicone rubber sheets, generates electricity when flexed and is highly efficient at converting mechanical energy to electrical energy. Shoes made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}