Producing electrical power with cardboard, tape, and a pencil

A small device made from everyday materials can generate enough energy to power several diodes. This clever discovery by an EPFL researcher was presented yesterday at a global conference on microand nanosystems in Shanghai. All you need to generate a little electricity is cardboard, Teflon tape and a pencil. A team from EPFL, working with researchers from the University of Tokyo, used these materials to make an 8-cm2 device that can generate more than 3 Volts of power: a simple, eco-friendly and inexpensive system that can produce the same current as two AA batteries - enough to operate a remote control. It all starts with static electricity - The principle underlying this system is well known: static electricity. When two insulators like paper and teflon come into, they gain or lose electrons. The system is made up of two small cards, where one side of each card is covered in pencil.