Garlic Peel Powers Self-Powered Door and Window Sensor
Researchers Manas Tiwari and Deepak Bharti built a triboelectric sensor that runs on garlic peel, generating up to 400 VAC when a door opens.
Researchers Manas Tiwari and Deepak Bharti have introduced a self-powered door and window sensor that runs on ground garlic peel, according to hackaday.com. The device is built around a triboelectric nanogenerator, or TENG, which produces electricity from the contact and separation of two materials.
The sensor uses ground garlic peel as the positive side of the generator and a sheet of polyethylene, or PE, as the negative side. Opening a door with the sensor installed generates about 210 VAC with a 45 µA short circuit current.
Adding a dual-side layer of garlic peel raises the output to 400 VAC and 65 µA, according to the reported results.
In testing, the sensor was still functional after half a year in storage and survived 200 stress cycles. Tiwari and Bharti are listed as the researchers behind the work.
Quick answers
How much voltage does the garlic peel sensor produce?
Opening a door with the sensor installed generates about 210 VAC with a 45 µA short circuit current. A dual-side layer of garlic peel increases the output to 400 VAC and 65 µA.
How durable is the sensor?
In testing, the sensor was still functional after half a year in storage and survived 200 stress cycles.
What materials does the sensor use?
It uses ground garlic peel as the positive side of a triboelectric nanogenerator and a sheet of polyethylene as the negative side.