A group of research scientists at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland announced they have found a new way to generate electricity. This method involves harvesting energy from vibrations in the environment and converting these vibrations into electricity. This was accomplished by connecting the bodies to an external circuit.
The researchers generated this energy by “utilizing the charging phenomenon that occurs naturally between two bodies with different work functions. Work function is the amount of energy needed to remove an electron from a solid and it determines, for example, the well-known photoelectric effect. When two conducting bodies with different work functions are connected to each other electrically, they accumulate opposite charges. Moving of these bodies with respect to each other generates energy because of the attractive electrostatic force between the opposite charges,” researchers said.
Harvesting energy will replace batteries and this technology is beneficial in situations where maintenance of batteries and energy is difficult or impossible, such as pacemakers in the medical industry. This discovery will create new opportunities in wearable electronics in the near future. Researchers are optimistic that this new technology will be introduced world-wide within the next three to six years.
