Our Sustainable Future: Ancient effect harnessed to produce electricity from waste heat

Published: Oct. 22, 2022, 6:44 p.m.

A phenomenon first observed by an ancient Greek philosopher 2,300 years ago has become the basis for a new device designed to harvest the enormous amounts of energy wasted as heat each year to produce electricity. The first-of-its-kind “pyroelectric nanogenerator” is the topic of a report in ACS’ journal Nano Letters.