By Prachi Patel, Technology Review
A microfluidics approach could be ideal for harnessing electricity from footsteps. A new way to harvest footfall energy could someday let shoes generate enough power to keep cell phones and laptops topped up. University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have come up with a microfluidics technique that scavenges considerably more energy from human footfalls and converts it into electric power. Previous attempts to make energy-harvesting shoes have yielded less than a watt of power, but the new approach could lead to a shoe-mounted generator that produces up to 10 watts, says Tom Krupenkin, a mechanical engineering professor who led the work.
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/38469/?p1=A6
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