Scientists Find Way to Tap Electricity From Trees

[mercurial]

Researchers have figured out a way to plug into the power generated by trees.

Scientists have known for some time that plants can conduct electricity. In fact, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that plants can pack up to 200 millivolts of electrical power. A millivolt is one-thousandth of a volt.

And although the popular potato or lemon battery experiments have shown that an electrical current can be generated by creating a reaction between the food and two different metals, power is harvested from trees through a different mechanism.

"We specifically didn't want to confuse this effect with the potato effect, so we used the same metal for both electrodes," said Babak Parviz, a professor of electrical engineering at Washington University and co-author of the study.

After spending the summer surveying trees, the researchers discovered that big leaf maple trees generated a steady voltage of up to a few hundred millivolts. Powering a circuit, however, required a much higher voltage.

To extract electricity from trees and convert it into useful energy, researchers built a boost converter capable of picking up as little as a 20 millivolt output and storing it to produce a greater output. By hooking it up to a tree using electrodes, the custom-built device was able to generate an output voltage of 1.1 volts, enough to run low-power sensors.

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[Devill]

Wonder if this has any negative effect on the trees.

 

[smokey]

Wonder if this has any negative effect on the trees.

 

[davemc]

ROFL, they could probably get more electricity from a piece of wire hanging in the air.

 

[Devill]

Yeah I mean its not like we need trees to breath or anything......

 

[Budza]

Well, if this results in more trees being planted so we can harvest their electrical output, where's there a problem?

Could be great news. Just not so sure how useful a 1 volt per acre yield is...

 

[Bizkit87]

hahaha, classic!!!!!

thanx smokey

 

[PCKing]

That's good news. We can have electricity without the use of coal and other fuels that can emit poisonous gases that stays in our atmosphere.

But like Devill ha said, I wonder if there's some kind of side-effect on trees.