[VIDEO] Nanotechnology Breakthrough: How can wooden floors generate usable electricity

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The engineers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison developed a wooden flooring that can generate electricity. This could generally be an eco-friendly material in houses and commercial edifices.

The discovery was described in the journal Nano Energy. It was led by Xudong Wang, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues together with Professor Wang's graduate student, Chunhua Yao.

So, how does this material work? The wooden flooring with wood pulp as the main component of this material is partly made of cellulose nanofibers. These minute fibers are chemically treated and will then generate an electrical charge when they come across with untreated nanofibers.

Once the nanofibers are implanted within flooring, they would generate electricity. These could be used to power lights or charge batteries, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison News.

What is more surprising with this eco-friendly material is its affordability since wood pulp is inexpensive and abundant. Professor Wang said that they have been working a lot on harvesting energy from human activities.

He further said that one way is to create something to put on people and the other way is to build something that has constant access to people. He thought then that the ground is the most-used place.

The floors in such buildings as malls and stadiums have the most traffic. With this, it is advisable to produce energy in this part of the edifices, according to Prof. Wang. He also said that their first test in their lab indicates that it functions for millions of cycles with no problem.

He added that they haven't converted those numbers into a year of life for a floor yet. But he thinks with an appropriate design it can definitely outlast the floor itself.

The research was funded by the Forest Products laboratory and national Science Foundation. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation is working on the patent for the technology.