Ancient Effect Harnessed To Produce Electricity From Waste Heat
A phenomenon first observed by an ancient Greek philosopher
2,300 years ago has become the basis for a new device designed
to harvest the enormous amounts of energy wasted as heat each
year to produce electricity. The first-of-its-kind “pyroelectric
nanogenerator” is the topic of a report in ACS’ journal Nano
Letters. Zhong Lin Wang and colleagues at Georgia Tech explain
that more than 50 percent of the energy generated in the U.S.
each year goes to waste, much of it as heat released to the
environment by everything from computers to cars to long-
distance electric transmission lines. Heat can be converted to
electricity using something called the pyroelectric effect,
first described by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus in 314
B.C., when he noticed the gemstone tourmaline produced static
electricity and attracted bits of straw when heated. Heating and
cooling rearrange the molecular structure of certain materials,
including tourmaline, and create