Kinetic Tiles for Floors and Highways
Let’s keep this simple
All moving things have kinetic energy. Kinetic Energy is energy that is possessed by an object due to its motion or movement. Any object, large or small, the size of a planet or as small as an atom, contains kinetic energy when in motion. The more mass an item has, and/or the faster it moves, the more kinetic energy it contains. An item that is at rest contains stored energy, otherwise known as ‘potential’ energy. Potential energy is converted to ‘kinetic’ energy once the item is put into motion.
We are all familiar with the conversion from kinetic energy to electricity when we observe the creation of electricity from a water dam. Water is held in place on the river by a concrete wall. The build-up of pressure created by the rising water increases the potential energy of the water.
When the gates are opened, allowing a controlled amount of water to flow over the dam or down a sluice, the potential energy of the water is converted into kinetic energy. When the force of the falling water moves the turbine blades of the generator, kinetic energy is converted to mechanical energy as it performs ‘work’. Of course the turbines spin a shaft connected to a generator with ‘electricity’ being the end result. Simple right?
So how does a Kinetic Tile create electricity?
Well, before we discuss that process we need to understand a little about electricity. When we were children we all learned that all matter is made up of atoms and that a certain number of electrons race around these atoms at a high rate of speed. We also learned that electrons can jump back and forth between atoms in a dance that bonds atoms together to form molecules.
Atoms can share electrons
When these electrons are disturbed, or dislodged from their orbit, they upset the balance of the electrical field of the atom and become a ‘charge’ particle, or an electric charge.
Materials that contain electrons that are easily freed from their orbits are called conductors. Copper is an example of a good conductor. Overtime humans have learned how to force electrons to move on a path from one place to another through these ‘conductors’, most commonly a copper wire; this is known as ‘current electricity’.
Current electricity is a flow of electric charge, or ‘charged’ particles. In electric circuits this charge is often carried by moving electrons in a wire. Flowing from negatively charged particles to positively charged particles, our electric ‘current’ flows like a river (hence the name current). Like our example of the flow of kinetic energy in water molecules over a dam, these charged particles in our electric current also contain kinetic energy. (It can be argued that current has both kinetic and potential energy, but let’s not go there, we’re trying to keep this simple).
One example of the movement of charged particles to produce electricity can be seen in something we all make use of on a daily basis….batteries. This diagram shows the
A Simple Battery Circuit
electric flow of a common battery. When a circuit of conducting material is connected from the negative side of the battery to the positive side negatively charged electrons will flow towards the positive side, creating an electric circuit. Any electrically operated object, such as a light bulb or a hair dryer, connected to this circuit will experience the flow of electrons and can convert this kinetic energy to mechanical energy and perform ‘work’.
The ‘Piezoelectric Effect’ is the Key
The ability of certain materials to generate an electrical charge in response to applied mechanical stress (otherwise known as ‘pressure’) is the key to the success of Kinetic Tiles. Discovered by two French physicists in 1880, the two brothers decided to name this newly detected phenomenon the Piezoelectric Effect (pronounced pee-zo-electric or pee-eh-zoh-electric). The name comes from the Greek words piezo which means “push” and piezein “to squeeze or press”.
The Piezoelectric Effect
When pressure is applied to certain materials (like ceramics, crystals, polymers, etc.) the force of the pressure disturbs its atoms, creating an electrical potential, (a voltage) across the material. The material temporarily becomes a kind of tiny battery with a positive charge on one face and a negative charge on the opposite face. Like a battery, current flows if we connect the two faces together to make a circuit.
One example of an everyday-life application of the Piezoelectric Effect is your car’s airbag sensor. The sensor detects the intensity of the shock from the collision (pressure) and sends an electrical signal which triggers the release of the airbag. The first practical application for a piezoelectric device was invented during World War I, it was Sonar. The invention of Sonar created intense international developmental interest in piezoelectric technology.
Let’s look at how the principle works in an activity such as walking. A single footstep causes pressure when the foot hits the floor. When the flooring is engineered with piezoelectric technology (Kinetic Tiles), the electrical charge produced by that pressure is captured by floor-tile sensors, converted to an electrical charge by piezo materials, then stored and used as a power source. Each individual step produces a minuscule amount of electrical energy, but thousands of steps combined can impact our lives.
The First Step
Kinetic Tile Applications
Now imagine a series of Kinetic Tiles installed in a high-traffic area such as Grand Central Station, Times Square, Lollapalooza, or Disneyland. Tens-of-thousands of footsteps can charge a thousand smart phones or power low-energy LED motion-detection pedestrian lighting. Eventually Kinetic Tiles installed in roadways will power streetlamps overnight, LED-lit roadway signs, and advertisements. The potential is there to gather power from heavier, higher-energy producing sources like airport runways and railroad tracks.
In October, 2014 at a new soccer-field in a Rio de Janeiro slum area, the neighborhood kids were able to play the world’s first player-powered community night game (ironically, the dilapidated field was funded and re-turfed by Shell Oil for this project).
Soccer Field Lighting Provided by Solar Panels and Kinetic Tiles
The batteries that powered the overhead lighting system were charged by the pounding feet of the kids on the field. Buried below the AstroTurf were 200 Kinetic Tiles that, along with a few solar panels, charged a battery system that is capable of lighting the field for up to 10 hours, allowing the kids to have a safe, well-lit place to kick the ball around.
The Future
Energy production is the main purpose of Kinetic Tiles, but it has interesting side-benefits as well. One such benefit is data collection. Recently the inventor of the Kinetic Tile, Laurence Kemball-Cook, made the following statement “When you stand on a tile, it sends out wireless data. This is useful for crowd-flow modeling, seeing how people move through cities. You can use it to control lighting more efficiently. It’s also a really key way for retailers to know how many people are visiting their shops. We imagine Google will cover streets with this in the future and use the data in interesting ways.”(January, 2015).
Who knows where this technology will take us. Creating electricity from the things we are already doing is essentially a free ride once the initial cost is recovered. In some ways it’s even better than solar or wind power because these technologies depend on the weather and are not always reliable. Kinetic Tiles and piezoelectric technology depend on the activities of humans and the movement of our machines. As with other green-energy sources, cost will eventually come down and this technology will become practical.
With this website we intend to follow the path of this fairly new concept. We have a long way to go, but it should be an interesting journey. Stay Tuned!
PaveGen Kinetic Tiles Generate Power from Paris Marathon Runners. Each Runner’s Step Yielded 8 Watts of Energy.
Kinetic Tiles 