What would you associate a foul smelled filthy log tailed rodent as rat with? Epidemic outbreak, food grain loss or may be even as an acceptable form of food to a particular social or economic class. How about them being a green source of electricity generation? Believe it or not that’s what’s new and what’s next to help us meet our energy needs. Zhong Lin Wang, a materials science and engineering professor at Georgia Tech, has shown that nanowires inside a rat can convert the power of breathing and heartbeats into electricity. When attached to the rat’s diaphragm, the animal’s breathing stretched the nanowire, and it generated a tiny amount of electricity — about four pico-amps of current at two millivolts.
When it was attached to the rat’s heart, the nano-generator produced about 30 pico-amps at about three millivolts. Although the energy generated is a very tiny amount, but the technology according to Wang has the potential to power nano-sized devices.
Via: Gizmodo/Technology Review