Electricity Generated from Coils and Globules

A ir-conditioning units guzzle energy, such that—in the summer months—they come in first place for electricity use among household appliances. Now Teppei Yamada and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo have developed a material that could help reduce air-conditioning energy needs by turning waste heat from these systems into electricity [1]. The material could also be used in wearable devices that need to generate their own electricity. “Technologies that turn heat into electricity are in their beginning stages,” Yamada says. “Here for the first time, we do that using a [polymer] phase transition.”