By: Dr. Ripudaman Singh, Asstt. Editor-ICN Group & Hemant Kumar, Special Correspondent-ICN Group
NEW DELHI: A pathbreaking research by scientists at IIT-Kharagpur (IITKgp) has shown the way to generate electricity from onion peel. Esteries left with bags of the waste product can now turn them into a power source – the skin of a single can light up 12 green LEDs.
Professor Bhanu Bhusan Khatua, Sumanta Kumar Karan (a PhD scholar) and their team at the Material Science Centre (MSC) of IIT Kgp have developed the green technology after a year-long research. The result has been tested and improved by scientists, led by Jin Kon Kim, at the Pohang University of Science and Technology (Postech), South Korea.
The paper was published in the Nano Energy journal in October 2017. The researchers have applied for a patent on the technology which can be used in places where onions are used in bulk. “The technology can be easily adopted at restaurants where a lot of onion peels are accumulated on a daily basis. Only, they end up in bins,” said Khatua.
The research found that only half-an-inch of an onion peel is enough to generate 20 volts. “If you gather the peels of sex onions and place them in a series, they can light-up 80 LEDs or charge your laptop or mobile phone,” the scientist said. To make the system work, the user has to encapsulate the onion skin and fabricate the device, called Nano generator, must then be attached mechanical or bio-mechanical energy sources to generate electricity.
