Imagine sitting in a brightly lit living room when the power goes out. While many households have turned to renewable energy sources like solar panels to keep the lights on during blackouts, not everyone can afford them. Fortunately, there’s piezoelectricity.
Piezoelectricity is a simple, sustainable power solution you can apply to homemade gadgets. The materials are often inexpensive and fun to build if you’re a technology fan. Most importantly, DIY piezo tools ensure you’re prepared for a blackout.
What Is Piezoelectricity?
Piezoelectric materials are asymmetrical solids like crystalline elements, ceramics, biological materials, DNA and various proteins. These materials convert mechanical stress to electrical energy, powering everyday items like inkjet printers, ultrasound machines, transducers, touch screens, airbag deployment sensors, watches and speaker systems.
Piezo materials are essential for health care, automotive, and security and defense applications. Experts estimate the global market will increase to $34.7 billion by 2025 from $27.6 billion in 2019.
How Do You Generate Electricity From Piezo?
The ability to generate electricity is invaluable amid a growing energy crisis and intensifying weather. Unlike traditional power sources, which rely on the electrical grid, piezoelectricity is a viable, cost-effective solution for generating power in small-scale situations.
You first need a piezo element to produce this type of electricity, which you can get from an inexpensive lighter. For most gadgets, you’ll also require basic wiring and a digital multimeter to test the voltage and current.
It is possible to make crystals at home if you can’t acquire a piezo element elsewhere. The ingredients you’ll need include cream of tartar, washing soda, baking soda and distilled water, which you will heat in a pot on a stove and allow to cool. Crystals take a week to 10 days to form using this method.
The internal crystals of your piezo element won’t have a well-balanced structure. If you squeeze or bend them, they will become distorted and generate an electrical charge. You can also apply electricity to bend the materials. Squeezing the crystals displaces the positive and negative charges to produce a voltage. How much electricity you generate depends on the pressure you put on the crystals.
You can harness piezoelectricity through direct pressure, vibration or impact. However, you’ll mainly focus on mechanical stress for DIY piezo gadgets. Storing the electricity is challenging due to the piezo’s low power output and current. A supercapacitor or rechargeable battery may be a sufficient storage device for sporadic use — you’ll need to experiment with these methods, though.
Piezo Gadgets You Can Make at Home
Although their use may be more serious, DIY piezoelectric gadgets can be fun to make. You can create several items from piezoelectricity for everyday purposes or an emergency.
[Editor’s note: As this was something I’d never heard of for power generation, I’d decided to research it a bit. Although interesting, I don’t see piezoelectric power as being useful for survival purposes, at least, not in their current state of development. But that doesn’t mean these can’t be a fun experiment and maybe, just maybe something to consider in the future.]
Piezo Fan
When the power goes out during a hot summer day, the lack of air conditioning could be hazardous to your health. A piezo fan may be the perfect remedy to keep you cool until the power returns.
Like any piezo-charged device, it can take time to work properly. However, you can try to make a bladeless version to create light airflow. Applying voltage to a piezo element causes mechanical deformation and high-frequency vibration, which induces air movement. The trick is to get the vibration to last a long time.
Piezoelectric Energy Generator
Being unable to charge a phone or turn on lights can be dangerous during an outage. How do you receive updates from emergency services, see where you’re going in the dark or use essential medical devices?
One study explored making a piezo energy generator to power small gadgets using a special type of foam. The method successfully harvested piezoelectricity through furniture by creating pressure. For instance, you could sit on a sofa or lie in bed.
Piezo generators are a popular classroom activity for students. Educators can integrate a circuit and a piezo element to power light-emitting diode bulbs. The mechanical-to-electrical conversion is stored in a temporary battery until enough energy is available to light up a light bulb.
Piezo Water Purifier
Researchers have found that piezo catalysis is a sustainable method of removing pollutants from water. This treatment utilizes vibrations instead of harsh chemicals and ample energy. Think of it as shaking a bottle to distort and stimulate crystals to generate small electrical currents.
A water purification system is an interesting purpose for a DIY piezoelectric gadget. A DIYer even attempted a desalination mechanism using a solar panel, an ultrasonic USB humidifier with a circuit board, a Peltier element, a converter, pipes and an aluminum cooling element.
Although their experiment resulted in brackish water — reducing salt from 35 grams per liter to about five grams — it was a great start to creating freshwater.
Prepare for the Unexpected With Piezo
It’s easy to take electricity for granted until there’s a power outage or other circumstance where you need it most. Piezoelectric gadgets are fun for DIY enthusiasts and can come in handy when power is unavailable. They may not be the easiest solution to your electricity problems, but these little gadgets can make a difference in a pinch.
[Note: This is a guest post.]
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