Piezoelectric Materials to Power Future Vehicles..?

Mankind is getting closer and closer to that ultimate goal of clean travel: a vehicle that uses a clean energy source to power itself!

A group of researchers from the City College of New York (CCNY) is developing a new technology to generate power for planes and automobiles based on piezoelectric materials, which can convert the kinetic energy of motion into electricity!

Piezoelectric material…

Refers to certain material that can generate an electric potential in response to applied mechanical stress.

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How?

The device used is about a half-inch by one inch in size and it can be mounted on the roof or tail of a car or on an airplane fuselage where they would vibrate in a flow of air, producing an output voltage.

The power generated…

Could then be used to run some systems such as batteries that would be used to charge control panels and other small electronic devices such as mobile phones.

What’s next?

Studies are being carried out to optimize the device and also to find the optimal location to place the device on an automobile or airplane.

The culmination of these efforts of course would be to develop the technology so that one day… the power generated in this manner would be sufficient to replace the energy supplied by the combustion engines!

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