Most of the wind available on land is too gentle to push commercial wind turbine(涡轮机), but now researchers in China have designed a kind of "tiny wind turbine,, that can use wind energy from breezes as little as those created by a quick walk. The new device is not technically a turbine. It is a nanogenerator made of two plastic strips in a tube that clap together when there is airflow. Like rubbing a balloon to your hair, the two plastics become electrically charged after being separated from contact, a phenomenon called the triboelectric effect. But instead of making your hair stand up like Einstein's, the electricity generated by the two plastic strips is captured and stored.
"Our intention isn't to replace existing wind power generation technology. "Our goal is to solve the issues that the traditional wind turbines can't solve?" says Ya Yang, a researcher from Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems. "Unlike wind turbines that use coils and magnets (磁石) where the costs are fixed, we can pick and choose low-cost materials for our device. Our device can also be safely applied to nature reserves or cities because it doesn't have the rotating (旋转) structures.
Yang says he has a small vision and a big vision for the project's next steps. In the past, Yang and his colleagues have designed a nanogenerator as small as a coin, but he wants to make it even tinier and more compact with higher efficiency. Yang is also looking to make the device bigger and more powerful. "I'm hoping to scale up the device to produce 1,000 watts. We can place these devices where traditional wind turbines can't reach. We can put it in the mountains or on the top of buildings for sustainable energy.
