Indian, South Korean team recycles onion peels into nanogenerators

KOLKATA: Chopping onions makes Materials Science Centre, Indian you cry but now, thanks to scientists Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, said.fromIndiaandSouthKorea,recycled onion skin waste offers reason to cheer Technically such devices are called for the green energy-powered smart bio-piezoelectric nanogenerators devices sector. (BPNG). A single onion skin-based

Researchers at IIT Kharagpur device can light up 30 green LEDs and Pohang University of Science by repeated human finger touch and Technology (Postech), South response. Korea, have fabricated biodegradable Energy harvesting through human and biocompatible self-powered body movement (joint movement) is energy harvesters (nanogenerators) an emerging trend in current science from onion skin waste for a range of and technology for smart applications biomedical applications. and is considered as a green alternative

Nanogenerators convert kinetic energy source, he said. energy created from vibrational When six such onion skin and mechanical sources into nanogenerator units are used in electrical power, doing away with the series, a maximum output voltage requirement of external circuits or of 106 Volt can be obtained, which batteries.

“The fabricated nanogenerator is capable of harvesting several types of mechanical energies, including body movements, wind flow and even machine vibrations,” B B Khatua, instantaneously turns on “more than 70 combined LEDs” (red, green and blue), making the device highly suitable in rural areas, the researcher informed.

The electricity in the cellulosebased onion skin peels is produced as a result of structural changes in the cellulose under external mechanical stress/force including movements as delicate as a finger touch.

The innovation was a result of collaboration between Khatua’s group (with his PhD student Sumanta Kumar Karan) at IIT Kharagpur and that of Jin Kon Kim’s (with Sandip Maiti), Postech, South Korea and is published in Nano Energy journal in October.