American engineers have created elastic robotic generators that generate cheap electricity through motion. He writes the New Atlas edition about it.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has announced the development of a technology for distributed embedded energy converters – special designs that will deform in all directions under the pressure of waves and generate electricity from virtually any movement or change in shape. According to scientists, technology can be introduced into clothing, buildings, roads and any object that is constantly under the influence of external forces.

This is made possible by many small flexible generators that work like muscle fibers. One of the first such generators in the late 1990s was based on dielectric elastomers with electrodes that together turned into a capacitor. Any change in the initial state increases the capacity of the structure, including stretching, compression, torsion or bending in any direction. With sufficient deformation, they are charged through the electrodes, as a result of which the capacitance returns to normal. Elasticity, on the other hand, works against the electric charge, returning the form to the state of least capacitance and producing more energy than was used to create the original charge.

As with turbine generators, these devices can both harvest energy from external forces and provide work as part of mechanisms. They can also act as sensors, transmitting data on how badly they are deformed.

An elastic generator in the form of a rubber membrane at the end of an air tube was tested in Scotland in 2019. It was able to harvest energy when high wave pressure pushed air into the tube, inflated rubber like a balloon, or when low pressure sucked a column of air and pulled the membrane down.

NREL generators work much more efficiently because any movement is sufficient to generate energy. The structures are made as flexible as possible and strong enough to react to the slightest fluctuations in the water. Scientists have demonstrated that there is a wall mounted at the bottom to collect the inertial energy, a “snake” on the cables, and a metal ball inside a larger ball to collect the inertial energy. Flexible generators are easy to manufacture from inexpensive environmentally friendly materials and do not require much maintenance in large quantities and are easy to replace. If one fails, hundreds will continue to generate electricity.

Previously, scientists created a unique battery that draws electricity directly from the air. They used a special fabric partially covered with sea salt – it produced 0.7 V.