The 2020 Meet with Science and Technology in Portugal (encontro CIÊNCIA’20) is now on progress (3rd and 4th of November). Current edition of the annual meeting of Portuguese researchers aims to promote a wide debate on the main topics and challenges of the scientific agenda beyond the world of scientific investigation. The main objective is to encourage not only the participation from diverse fields/sectors, but also to create and enhance the interaction among researchers, the business sector and the general public. Hence, there lies the main attraction of this event to various levels of society as this is a platform to connect science and technology together with the general public in a very popular way. Also, Nobel laureates take part to expand their experiences to the common people.
This Science Meet is promoted by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in collaboration with Ciência Viva – National Agency for Scientific and Technological Culture and the Parliamentary Education and Science Commission, and has the institutional support of the Government through the Minister of Science , Technology and Higher Education. “The main motto of the Science 2020 Meeting will be the importance and challenges of science, research and innovation in the recovery of Portugal in times of pandemic, making this country and Europe more resilient, more digital, greener, more social and more global” [1].
Many scientific and technological demonstrations are going on in which several eminent groups from research and industry fields are participating. Among many others, the group of Elvira Fortunato and Rodrigo Martins from ‘Institute of Nanostructures, Nanomodeling and Nanofabrication, Faculty of Science and Technology, Universidade Nova de Lisboa’ (CENIMAT-i3N) is no doubt a very famous and well-recognised one in their field (Materials Science) from Portugal. They have presented their contribution on ´´Systems for converting mechanical to electrical energy for autonomous low-consumption devices´´ [2]. In this demonstration, several prototypes which are developed at CENIMAT-i3N (FCT UNL) during different international and national research projects are presented, to show the conversion of the mechanical energy of movements to electrical energy. This kind of energy harvesters are now an emerging field of research and application as they reuse the wasted energy in daily body movements/dynamical motions by converting them into the electrical energy that can be further utilized to power up several portable devices and applications. To demonstrate in a simple way to the general public, the development processes of these devices with planar or linear configurations are also exhibited, as well as their application when connecting simple electrical devices such as an analog clock and LEDs. In the video link [2], it is quite interesting to find the details about how different kind of biocompatible polymers and substrates like carbon and textile fibers have been coated with several energy harvesting materials (piezoelectric or tribo-electric or mechano-electrical) and then designed to develop the device prototypes [3-6]. This new kind of mechanical energy harvesters can have immense impact in reaching the sustainable development goals, as well to extend a new stream for renewable energy applications for a better, greener and cleaner environment.
References:
[1] https://www.encontrociencia.pt/index.php
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIiRqn7rqZs
[3] G. Ferreira, S. Goswami, S. Nandy, L. Pereira, R. Martins, E. Fortunato, Advanced Functional Materials 2020, 30, 1908994
[4] S. Goswami, A. dos Santos, S. Nandy, R. Igreja, P. Barquinha, R. Martins, E. Fortunato, Nano Energy 2019, 60, 794
[5] A. Rovisco, A. dos Santos, T. Cramer, J. Martins, R. Branquinho, H. Águas, B. Fraboni, E. Fortunato, R. Martins, R. Igreja, P. Barquinha, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2020, 12, 18421-18430
[6] A. dos Santos, N. Pinela, P. Alves, R. Santos, E. Fortunato, R. Martins, H. Águas, R. Igreja, Advanced Electronic Materials 2018, 4, 1800182.