The researchers said they have successfully created viruses that create electricity in response to mechanical stress. In one experiment, they coated a seal-sized electrode with the virus, which generated electricity as soon as scientists hit the seal surface. This current design, the first product that uses the piezoelectric properties of a biological material, produces enough energy to power a small LCD. Future designs could be integrated, for example, into shoes or clothing (or common moving objects such as doors or wheels) to create much more energy, power appliances or charge your batteries.
"More research is needed, but our work is a promising first step towards the development of personal power generators, actuators for use in nano-devices and other devices based on viral electronics," says Seung-Wuk Lee, a faculty scientist In Berkeley's Division of Physical Bioscience Laboratory and an associate professor of bio-engineering at UC Berkeley.
The initial results of the research are published in the May 13 online publication of the journal Nature Nanotechnology. The research is apparently in its very incipient stages, but the creation of electricity from kinetic energy is a very popular research topic these days and this clearly promising as long as the viruses are as harmless as the researchers say.