Piezoelectric Floor Tiles
How cool would it be to generate electricity from just walking around? We actually can charge up our phones while we reach our destination! No extra time to wait until your phone charges up to a 100% !
What are piezoelectric floor tiles?
Piezoelectric tiles are normal floor tiles built using specific crystals and ceramics which generate mild electric currents when mechanical stress is applied on them. Certain crystals have the ability to generate and store an electric charge when mechanical stress is applied on them. Such crystals are referred to as Piezoelectric crystals. They are made to help in clean renewable energy harvesting.
What is Piezoelectricity?
The electric charge that certain crystals generate and accumulate as a result of application of mechanical stress on it is called piezoelectricity. It means electricity from pressure and latent heat. Such materials include quartz, Rochelle salts like Potassium Sodium Titrate, some plastics, table sugar and bone.
The concept of Piezoelectricity originates from the Greek word “squeeze or press” discovered by Pierre and Jacques Curie in 1880.
Dwindling sources of energy has been one of the major problems for any country irrespective of its economic status which has led to a lot of investment in discovering renewable sources of energy. Piezoelectric tiles can be considered as one of the most cleanest forms of energy generation as they rely only on mechanical stress applied on them.
What are these tiles made up of?
Usually in a system, large number of tiles are installed in order to produce maximum amount of electricity as possible.
A generalized Piezo-Tile usually consists of 4 layers :
1) Top Most Surface
The top layer of the tiles needs to be strong enough as well as has to be water resistant. Usually most of the pathways are made up of concrete. In some cases trail joggers asphalt is preferred. But all these materials don’t provide the best comfort. Hence other materials like wood, cork, carpeting or rubber are preferred as all of them are flexible enough, provide an anti-fatigue experience and open up the possibility of recycling the layer should it be damaged by any means.
2) Smart Floor Harvester
This is the main layer which actually produces the electricity. This layer consists of the crystals that actually generate the electricity. Every tile has a specific capacity for storing the electric charge depending on the thickness of the layer and the amount of crystals the layer is made up of.
3) Wireless Transmitter
This component is responsible for communicating with the main control unit for sending necessary updates like amount of generated electricity, health of the tile, number of footsteps recorded, etc.
How do Piezoelectric Floor Tiles actually work?
As children we are all learned that all matter is made up of atoms that contain a certain number of electrons revolving around them at very high speeds. We also learned that electrons can jump back and forth from one orbit to another corresponding to their energy levels. Often these electrons are the reason behind the bonding of multiple atoms which together constitute the matter. When these electrons are disturbed they upset the electric field of the atom and become a charged particle.
We apply pressure on the piezoelectric crystals when we step on them disturbing the atoms. Thus an electric potential is created across the material which in turn turns into a tiny battery with positive and negative charges on either of the faces. So just like a battery, the current flows if we connect the two faces together to make a circuit. This current is then transferred to very large batteries to be stored for later use.
Advantages : -
1) Renewable Energy Resource : Electricity generated doesnot burn any other resources
2) Continuous Energy Generation : As these tiles are installed directly on the pavement, energy is generated all day long, irrespective of the time and weather
3) Made by renewable materials, which makes it easier for us to maintain them. Any specific malfunctioning component can be easily replaced without hampering the entire system.
4) Each tiles works independently. So we don’t need to shut down the entire network in order to change just a few number of tiles
5) Good Replacement for non-renewable energy resources
6) Good alternative to charge devices which don’t need a high voltage source or those having comparatively less energy requirements.
Disadvantages:-
1) Piezoelectric materials have an unfavorable compatibility and poor durability with concrete structures
2) The amount of energy generated per tile is very small. So some kind of external mechanical amplification is required
3) The cost of installing a piezoelectric floor tile is very high. It starts from around 300 Rupees per square foot
4) Piezoelectric materials are finally put under pressure to produce electricity. But being brittle, they are prone to cracking under external loadings.
Wireless chargers can be installed into these tiles so that our phones can be charged up while we walk around in the park or just sit there enjoying the sunsets.
To sum it all up, piezoelectric floor tiles can become a good viable solution to charge smaller devices. If we look around ourselves, we can see a lot of these “small” devices. So replacing the charging source of only these devices might as well be a good start to incorporating this technology. These tiles can be installed not only on the pavement but also in our houses, as bathroom tiles , on the doors to collect as much amount of vibrations as possible.
A lot of research is going on to reduce the cost of these tiles so that people from all types of economic conditions can afford these tiles. New ceramic materials are being proposed to replace the costlier ones which might give around the same amount of energy output as the ones used now. If engineered properly, Piezoelectric Floor Tiles can prove to be one of the major game changers in the industry of energy generation.