Energy

Simpler, cheaper electrical generator can be made with store-bought tape

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Store-bought double-sided tape is a key ingredient in a promising new triboelectric generator design
Store-bought double-sided tape is a key ingredient in a promising new triboelectric generator design
Illustration of a newly developed triboelectric generator
ACS Omega (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.2c05457

With an ability to turn friction into small amounts of electricity, triboelectric generators may one day be used in clothes that turn movement into power, in battery-free brain implants, and a host of other scenarios. Scientists working on cheap and easy versions of these tiny generators have landed upon a design that makes use of store-bought double-sided tape, and which they say can perform on par with more complex versions when it comes to producing electricity.

We’ve seen many versions of triboelectric generators over the years that work on the premise that certain materials become electrically charged when rubbed against one another, such as a balloon and your hair. According to the authors of this new study, designs so far have involved complex arrangements of expensive parts, and have also had a limited output in terms of power.

Led by Gang Wang from the University of Alabama, the scientists have now made inroads on a less complicated version. The researchers' triboelectric generator builds on earlier research that indicated these systems can be made of tape, plastic and metal, but they piece these components together in a way that brings their performance up to that of more complex and expensive versions.

The design comprises store-bought double-sided tape and plastic film, sandwiched between thin plates of aluminum. Pressing the layers together momentarily and disconnecting them causes a spark to form, with the amount of pressure applied directly influencing the amount of power generated.

Illustration of a newly developed triboelectric generator
ACS Omega (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.2c05457

A version of the generator featuring two electrodes was used to produce a power density of 169.6 W per square meter (10.7 sq ft), which the team says is 47% higher than previous designs. In a round of experiments, the team used the generator to light up an array of 400 LEDs by simply pressing on its layers.

Powering LEDs or other small electronics is one possible use case for triboelectric generators, but there are many more. The list includes wooden floors that harvest energy from foot traffic, hearing aids that power themselves, touchscreens that generate electricity when you use them, and forest sensors powered by swaying tree branches. In making one of these generators with the help of store-bought items, the scientists have thrown a simpler, low-cost approach into the mix.

The research was published in the journal ACS Omega.

Source: American Chemical Society

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11 comments
anthony88
Imagine if they put this stuff on shopping trolley wheels and made supermarket floors out of old PET bottles. They'd generate enough electricity to provide base-load power to an aluminium smelter.
MonacoJim
So now the home experimenter is gathering Plastic PET water bottles, kitchen foil and double sided sticky tape to see if this works.
reader
Triboelectricity is electrostatic energy. C-Motive electrostatic generators (& motors) use printed circuit board (PCB) rotors and PCB stators in dielectric fluid and can scale up to megawatts in size without magnets, copper wiring or iron. It's a big advance for sustainable electrification.

rgbatduke
Not sure I get this. I have yet to discover any version of tape that can be pressed together and separated even 1000 times before the stickum is pretty much useless. Stretching it to the breaking point polymerizes it and gradually converts sticky to not sticky. A few other things in the design and prototype don't really look scalable and sustainable. I'm open minded, of course, and will await with great interest any report that this actually is more than a toy leading to a paper with virtually no useful application once the engineering is done. Or not done. Or how it compares to e.g. piezoelectric generation for similar scales, or (as noted) PCB-based rotary electrostatic generators, or homopolar magnetic generators, or...

I gotta admit this is not what I was expecting when I read about this being a useful "generator" based on tape.
niio
What they don't say is that it quits working as soon as the tape loses tack, only a handful of uses.
McDesign
I remember pulling 2-place fiberglass sailboat hulls out of the mold, and seeing huge, foot-long static discharges. Same here thing, I guess - intimate contact and pulling away strips electrons.
TechGazer
Lets hope that this doesn't lead to floors or shopping trolleys or other such things to generate electricity. In a story about automation today, someone pointed out that some of the automation is used to make the customers do the work (self-checkouts, etc). Floors don't generate power; the people walking on it do, and it makes walking more tiring (and requires more food). So, this sort of power generation could be used to generate power (money) from people without compensation.
christopher
Sparks destroy most things they come into contract with, and bathe everything around in dangerous (UV - damages your eyes) and obstructive (RF jams your phone/wifi/tv/etc) emissions...
JamesFeeney
I wonder if a wind generator could be made with this technology? Maybe a sheet of plastic with the end having many cutouts to form fingers that flap back and forth. The wind could cause these finger on the trailing edge to flap in the wind, and make some high voltage.
Marco McClean
2008: Pulling cellophane tape apart generates x-rays:
https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2008.1185