Energy from motion is all around us — in the tides, in wind, when we walk, when we drive and even the vibrations from ambient sounds. A research team

at Georgia Tech has taken a step towards making that energy useful.

A group led by

materials science professor Zhong Lin Wang has built a power cell that

recharges when it's compressed or deformed. Current versions are small,

producing only a few hundred millivolts, but a larger one could supplement or

even a replace batteries in electronic devices.

BLOG: Your Knees Could Power Mobile Devices

The power cell is made of a cathode and anode. The cathode

is lithium-cobalt-oxide (LiCoO2) and the anode is titanium dioxide (TiO2). The

anode is made up of tiny nanometer-sized tubes grown on a titanium film. The

anode and cathode are separated by a membrane made from polyvinylidene

fluoride film, also known as PVDF.

PVDF is a piezoelectric material, the kind that generates

a charge whenever it is put under a mechanical strain such as compression, stretching

or bending. The charge generated by the stress drives lithium ions from the

cathode to the anode. The lithium ions form lithium-titanium oxide, and store

the energy. Release the stress and the electric field disappears — but the

lithium ions stay in the anode.

Connecting an electrical circuit to the cathode and anode

causes the lithium ions to flow back to the cathode until the cycle is

repeated.

Pressing on the cell more than two times per second produced up to 395

millivolts in four minutes. That's close to the frequency at which human steps

hit the ground during a walk.

BLOG: Charge Your Phone With Bacteria-Eating Viruses

The device was then discharged with a current of one

milliamp for about two minutes. Wang's team estimated the power cell held about

0.036 milliamp-hours. That's small — a typical lithium-ion battery holds four

orders of magnitude more. But it shows that this kind of technology works. The

big barrier to more efficiency is the metal casing of the cell, because it

doesn't transmit all the mechanical energy from pressing on it.

The research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research

Projects Agency, which has a real interest in powering mobile devices for the

military without the need for generators to charge them.

Credit: Gary Meek /

Georgia Tech