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Interesting carbon nano-tube stuff here:

Nanofluidic channels are an intriguing means of harvesting electrical energy from unusual sources, such as the bumping of car suspension or even the flexing of your shoes...

...If the density of tubes were increased to, say, a few percent of the membrane area, which does not seem unreasonable, then the output power density could rise above the level of several kW/m2. This would be roughly comparable to the output power density of a hydroelectric dam.

But I can imagine applications that are smaller in scale. A nanoporous membrane can be configured to harvest energy from almost any situation where useful mechanical work would otherwise be dissipated away, like in the shocks of a car or even the soles of shoes.

posted by Purp at 08:34 PM

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