Street lights that get their electricity from traffic vibrations

Imagine streetlights energized by traffic vibrations, tires that recharge your vehicle with electrical energy while it drives, or shoes that when you walk with them on generate electricity that allows the person to recharge their mobile phone. These energy innovations could become viable thanks to researchers who are developing cheap, environmentally friendly materials capable of generating electricity when pressed by direct mechanical action or when vibrated.

The research and development team includes, among others, Nikhil Koratkar and Sk Shamim Hasan Abir, from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the United States.

The key to this new class of materials is a polymer film enriched with a special chalcogenide perovskite compound, which produces electricity when pressed, a phenomenon known as the piezoelectric effect.

Although other piezoelectric materials have been used for some time, the new type is among the few high-performance materials that do not contain lead, a notoriously polluting chemical element. This places the new class of materials as an excellent candidate for use in machines of all types, infrastructures in general as well as even in biomedical applications.

The chalcogenide perovskite polymer film measures just 0.3 millimeters thick, so it could be easily integrated into a wide range of devices, other objects and structures.

Essentially, this class of material converts mechanical energy into electrical energy: the greater the pressure load applied and the larger the surface area on which the pressure is applied, the greater the effect.

The new polymer film enriched with a special chalcogenide perovskite compound produces electricity when pressed and promises to provide the ability to generate electrical energy to countless devices and objects. (Photo: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Koratkar and his colleagues lay out the technical details of their revolutionary new class of materials in the academic journal Nature Communications, under the title “Piezoelectricity in chalcogenide perovskites.” (Fountain: NCYT by Amazings)