As part of a bid to harness electricity from the sea waves, a team of engineers in China has stepped up to develop nanogenerators that work on the principle of “triboelectric effect”. Researchers have conducted research on the new device, and according to them, these newly developed nanogenerators have the capability to double the energy generated per volume as compared to the previous versions. The mechanism revolves around generating static electricity when the two materials rub together. As said, this is the most effective approach to harvesting wave energy in the form of electricity, and as per researchers, these nanogenerators are capable of producing 347 watts per cubic meter of power.
This huge amount of electricity generated by these nanogenerators is going to be 30 times more than that of other triboelectric devices. And all of this happened because the researchers made use of more tiny generators that can be packed together in a given space. The more tiny generators there are, the more energy will be generated. It should be noted that this is not a first-time concept. Prior to this, scientists tried to generate electricity by connecting different triboelectric generators together, but not enough energy was generated. However, this time, they have come up with a new way to link thousands of triboelectric generators in long chains and this has enabled them to harness energy as per their goals.
Coupled with this, the concept has been brought forward by a team led by Zhong Lin Wang at the Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems in China. Not only this, when the concept of a triboelectric nanogenerator was first revealed back in 2012, Wang was the person behind its engineering. However, the recent design of triboelectric nanogenerators consists of a coil in the form of a spring that is housed inside the cylinder. Electric current is generated when the parts of a spiral come back and forth due to the wave motion of the cylinder.
Apart from this technology, another masterpiece was developed in August 2021 that was also focused on enhancing the power generated from the oceanic waves. However, only the prototype of this technology was developed back then. We should acknowledge all of these efforts because we know that wave energy is one of the most important forms of renewable energy and we can reap numerous benefits from it if used effectively.
