New way to generate electricity: viruses

Perhaps the biggest challenge for the human population in the next couple of decades will be centred around electricity/power needs. As consumption grows, with increasing use of technology, there's also a need to discover ways to generate electricity without causing great environmental damage as can take place in the case of nuclear power.

Now scientists in from the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have found a way to generate power using harmless viruses that convert mechanical energy into electricity.

According the Berkeley news release: The scientists tested their approach by creating a generator that produces enough current to operate a small liquid-crystal display. It works by tapping a finger on a postage stamp-sized electrode coated with specially engineered viruses. The viruses convert the force of the tap into an electric charge.

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[caption id="attachment_309352" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="Representational Image. Reuters"][/caption]

So how does the generator work? It uses piezoelectric principles, which assume that physical stress can be converted into electricity.

According to the scientists at Berkeley: The milestone could lead to tiny devices that harvest electrical energy from the vibrations of everyday tasks such as shutting a door or climbing stairs. It also points to a simpler way to make microelectronic devices.

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