Move Over Solar: There’s New Energy Right At Our Feet

Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are turning wood pulp, a common waste material, into a flooring that generates electricity. The researchers chemically treated the wood pulp nanofibers that the flooring is made out of with two differently charged materials, so that when someone walks across the floor, these fibers then interact with one another, similar to static electricity. The electrons released by this vibration are then captured by a capacitor that is attached to the flooring and the energy is stored for later use. Plug a battery or other device into the capacitor, and the energy can be used.