In Ireland, researchers at the University of Limerick discovered that the biomolecule glycine, which occurs in practically all agro and forestry residues, can generate enough electricity when tapped or squeezed to power electrical devices in an economically viable and environmentally sustainable way. Glycine is the simplest amino acid and can be produced at less than one per cent of the cost of currently used piezoelectric materials which are synthetic and often contain toxic elements such as lead or lithium.
Lead author Sarah Guerin, a post-graduate student at the Department of Physics and the Bernal Institute, UL, said in their press release, “We used computer models to predict the electrical response of a wide range of crystals and the glycine number was off the charts. We then grew long, narrow crystals of glycine in alcohol and we produced electricity just by tapping them.”
They have a patent pending that could use their findings for things like biodegradable power generation, devices detecting diseases inside of the body and physiologically controlled drug pumps.