{"id":12663,"date":"2020-09-14T17:55:06","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T00:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/?p=12663"},"modified":"2020-09-15T08:38:42","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T15:38:42","slug":"eather-one-when-friction-is-a-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/eather-one-when-friction-is-a-good-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Eather One \u2013 When Friction is a Good Thing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tribolectrics<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Your editor has long promoted the idea of the Grand Unified Airplane, a vehicle which would essentially power itself from sunlight, piezoelectrics, structural batteries, and even the friction of the air over its surfaces.\u00a0 He wrote about the concept in the May, 2013 Kitplanes<\/em>,<\/a> and has noted an increasing number of articles in scientific journals describing a variety of nanogenerators, including tribolectric types<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Your editor applied Grand Unified Airplane ideas to Richard Glassock’s concept for eight-seat powered sailplane.\u00a0 (Wish someone would build it.)<\/p><\/div>\n

Tribolectrics are not new, having been discovered in the 18th century and initially quantified by Johan Carl Wilcke<\/a>, a Swedish Physicist in 1757.\u00a0 \u201cTribo\u201d comes from the Greek for \u201crub,\u201d and as shown in the following video, even the rubbing of air over a surface can generate electricity.\u00a0 Note that about the 1:25 point Dr. Wang blows across the nanogenerator and lights up the LEDs.<\/p>\n