On a routine day, Ajay A. Pillai delivers the good-old snail mails to the interiors of Aranmula in Pathanamthitta. But when he left the labs of Christian College, Chengannur, from his much-preferred role of a researcher, for a permanent job, he did not completely ditch his efforts to develop a mechanism to produce cheap electricity. Nor does the college and the research team he worked with.
His determination and the research team’s effort finally culminated in them developing a low-cost triboelectricity generation mechanism that can function as self-powered sensors in medical devices, touch screens, wearable gizmos, sports equipment, and security systems.
The team consisting of lead researcher Mr. Pillai who is a postman in the India Post, Vinoy Thomas, associate professor, Christian College, and others developed the prototype of a free-standing triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) over a period of two years. The team’s work was published in the peer-reviewed international journal Materials Science and Engineering B.
TENGs are nanomaterial-based devices that convert mechanical/thermal energy into electrical energy by transferring electrons from one surface to another via contact electrification and electrostatic induction. For almost a decade now, researchers across the globe are striving to increase the efficiency of the TENG systems.
Mr. Pillai and his team used graphene oxide with silver nanoparticles paper on a Teflon fabric to generate a peak electricity of 40μW for a voltage of 4 V. According to the researchers, using silver particles can increase efficiency by 200 times.
“The idea of scavenging energy for our daily needs from our own environment is an exciting idea. TENG can convert even the uncounted (hidden) sources like slow wind, tiny raindrops, small mechanical vibrations, and even our heartbeats to useful energy. It has high potential due to flexibility in design, low fabrication techniques, less maintenance and elimination of battery points. We developed the prototype of the TENG system with low-cost materials. We proved the incorporation of tiny forms (nano) of silver can greatly enhance the TENG system’s performance. This plasmon-enhanced design of TENGs can open a new path in the near future,” says Mr. Thomas who guided the research.
Mr. Pillai from Karakkad, near Chengannur, who studied MSc Physics at the Christian College, started developing TENG in 2020. “After completing the PG programme, I rejoined the college as a project assistant. However, in 2021, I got a job at India Post. But I wanted to complete the research work and with the help of other members of the team, we made it,” says Mr. Pillai.
Despite him leaving college after getting the new job, the college continued to open the door of its lab for him on weekends and holidays. “Ajay could have stopped the research midway after getting the job. But he continued working on weekends and holidays. He is an inspiration to other students,” says Mr. Thomas.
