Makes you wonder what other properties of the universe we can harness for energy.
Pretty cool.
I wonder if it could scale up to house hold requirements.
Even robotics. Program robots to clean up rivers etc
I hope so, I hope that they are being intentionally restrained in the talk of the 1mm x 1mm chip for low power applications.
It’s strange to think that for all of the technology we have, we are still mostly a steam and oil powered world. Bring me the Star Trek Gate technology, now!!!
Yep, that is pretty cool.
What’s even more impressive is that it comes from the University of Arkansas. 
Those of you not from the US might not get that, but Arkansas is generally considered kind of red neck.
I call BS.
What power can they get? Because a micro-micro watt ain’t going to be very helpful, and they already have energy harvesting solutions that can do that, by converting vibration into power.
Apparently a 10 micrometer * 10 micrometer slice of graphene could produce 10 microwatts.
So to produce 1W we’d need 100,000x that area, which would only be around 4 millimeters squared (edit: 4mm by 4mm, so 16mm2) of graphene, plus supporting circuitry - and only if it scales like that in the first place of course. There’s layering vertically to think about as well.
The vibration they are harvesting isn’t external btw, apparently it’s a property of 2D graphene that it has just while existing.
So say 2 sq cm per W. I’ll take that.
I didn’t read the whole article (whoops there I go again) so I didn’t know that this new thing does energy harvesting too.
Actually I was thinking specifically of vibration harvesting using existing piezo (and other) tech when I made my first post and now I realize that I was being sloppy because energy harvesting includes other sources in addition to vibration.
I love articles like this. My thoughts swell with the promise of how better the world could be if battery tech improved. I’m also at peace with not hearing about it ever again when nothing comes of it.
Damn illuminati!!
It’s definitely an exciting development. There’s also molten salt based battery tech from MIT IIRC that Herr Gates has invested in maybe a year or so ago that could be suitable for big storage applications like power station surplus.
These 3D printed houses look quite 21st century too:
They can print really uniquely shaped buildings.
Here’s a new take on the infinite battery goal, Cambridge have been running an IoT style device for a year non-stop with this algae battery:
2 Likes
Cool.
JHughes: this ain’t going to power the State of California, or even your car, but it might be interesting for e.g. medical devices that require a tiny amount of constant electric energy. Say pacemaker or sensors that monitor your health. I don’t know, I’m not a doctor.
“Infinity battery” might suggest a limitless source of energy. There ain’t no such thing.
I like the way Tesla just crammed AA size (at first) cells into huge batteries for their cars. It’s that simple scaling that could make these tiny power sources potentially a lot more versatile than they first appear. Tesla stuck over 7,000 AA batteries in their original battery packs!
Solar power isn’t very good where I live so converting cloud light into power with entire walls made of these algae doodahs would be nice.
Seems like there is some great potential there.
Something that could help it along is getting back to efficiency in software development. There used to be so much done with so little.