Generator

While we've been hearing a lot about wearable piezoelectric devices that produce electricity from people's movements, such gadgets don't work well under certain conditions. A new bioelectric wearable, however, could excel where they falter.

​Using principles similar to those deployed in large hydroelectric power plants, a team of Chinese researchers has developed a tiny nanogenerator that can potentially sit inside a vein and generate electricity from blood rushing through it.

Armed with a special nanogenerator and a toy Jeep, researchers have demonstrated that the energy wastage caused by friction as car tires roll across the road can be captured and turned into electricity. It's a development that could bring about better fuel efficiency in cars of the future.

The Power Pallet works by burning available biomass, but before the fuel is fully combusted, the resulting flammable gases like hydrogen and carbon monoxide are spirited away to be used instead as fuel in a General Motors engine that acts as an electrical generator.

When we complain about the rain, other people will often say "Yeah, but it's good for the plants." Well, thanks to a microturbine-based system created by three students from the Technological University of Mexico, it's now also being used to generate electricity for use in low-income homes.

In an effort to demonstrate the potential of humidity power as a potential renewable energy source, researchers have created prototype electrical generators with rubber sheets that move in response to changes in humidity thanks to a coating of bacterial spores.

Professor J.C. Chiao and his postdoc Dr. Smitha Rao of the University of Texas at Arlington have developed a MEMS-based nickel alloy windmill so small that 10 could be mounted on a single grain of rice. They are aimed at very-small-scale energy harvesting applications.

Crowdfunding has come to the small wind generation field with an Indiegogo campaign for a small wind generator intended for an interesting target niche: clipped onto solar panels.

Sandia National Laboratories produced a new family of compact, inexpensive neutron generators.

Triboelectric generators developed at Georgia Tech could be used to produce electricity from activities such as walking and they even have the potential to enable touchscreens that generate their own power.

A high-efficiency emergency solar generator by Sun Flare Systems featured on Canadian TV last Sunday

Brother’s self-charging Vibration Energy Cell batteries are deigned to replace AA or AAA batteries in some low power devices that can then be powered with a shake.