Technology Uses Plant Biomass Waste for Self-Powered Biomedical Devices
Phoenix666 writes:
Technology uses plant biomass waste for self-powered biomedical devices:
An innovation turning waste material into stretchable devices may soon provide a new option for creating self-powered biomedical inventions.
A team from Purdue University used lignin to create triboelectric[*] nanogenerators. TENGs help conserve mechanical energy and turn it into power. Lignin is a waste byproduct from the pulp and paper industries, and it is one of the most abundant biopolymers on Earth.
[...] Wu said the lignin-based triboelectric devices also could function as self-powered sensors to detect and monitor the mechanical activities from the human body in applications such as health monitoring, human-machine interface, teleoperated robotics, consumer electronics and virtual and augmented reality technologies.
Journal Reference:
Yukai Bao, Ruoxing Wang, Yunmei Lu, Wenzhuo Wu. Lignin biopolymer based triboelectric nanogenerators [open], APL Materials (DOI: 015794APM)
[*] Triboelectric effect.
One man's kitchen scraps are another man's cyber-machines.
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