Cooking could soon power up your phone
USA - A new material that can generate electricity from heat and cold air has been developed by researchers at the University of Utah. The material works via process called the ‘thermoelectric effect’, where the temperature difference in a material generates an electric voltage. The material has the potential to generate electricity from body heat through jewelry such as a ring, or even charge a cellphone through a cooking pan in just a few hours. The research team, led by University of Utah materials science and engineering professor Ashutosh Tiwari, found that combining the elements calcium, cobalt and terbium can create a material that can generate electricity through a thermoelectric process involving heat and cold air. The researchers say that the material is inexpensive to produce and bio and ecofriendly. It works via thermoelectric effect - when the temperature difference in a material generates an electrical voltage. When one side of the material is hot and the other end is cold, charge carriers from the hot end move through the material to the cold end, generating an electrical voltage. The new material needs less than a one-degree difference in temperature to produce a detectable voltage. For many years, researchers searched for the right kind of material that makes this process more efficient and produces more electricity and is not toxic. While other materials can generate power in this way, such as cadmium, telluride or mercury based materials, they are toxic to humans. But the material produced by Professor Tiwari is bio-friendly and could be safe to use with humans. ‘It’s very efficient and can be used for a lot of day-to-day applications,’ he said. The applications for the new material are ‘endless,’ said Professor Tiwari. Just some of the potential applications for it include charging mobile devices through cooking plans, or in cars where it draws from the heat of the engine. It could also be built into jewelry that uses body heat to power implantable medical devices such as blood-glucose monitors or heart monitors. Airplanes could even generate extra power by using heat from within the cabin as opposed to the cold air outside. Power plants could also use the new material to produce more electricity from the heat generates from the plants the escapes. ‘In power plants, about 60 percent of energy is wasted,’ said postdoctoral researcher and first author of the research paper, Dr Shrikant Saini. ‘With this, you could reuse some of that 60 percent,’ he said.
(dailymail.co.uk)