They say there’s no use crying over spilled
milk but it turns out tears can have a use
after all; generating electricity.
Well more accurately an enzyme in tears, lysozyme,
can be used to generate a tiny amount of electricity.
Lysozyme is also found in saliva, mucus, egg
whites, and milk, so spilled milk seems to
be an untapped energy gold mine.
Researchers have been studying lysozyme for
decades.
Back in 1965 it was the second protein structure
and first enzyme shape that was ever mapped
out.
But only recently was its electrical property
discovered when researchers placed a film
of lysozyme crystals between two plates of
glass and squeezed.
Yep, that’s all it took.
Electricity from a squeeze.
It’s known as Piezoelectricity, and it’s
much more common than you might realize.
The phenomenon was discovered in 1880 by Pierre
and Paul-Jacques Curie.
Yes, as in the husband and brother-in-law
of double Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie.
Apparently 90% of science back then was done
by somebody with the last name Curie.
Today inkjet printers, earbud speakers, and
acoustic-electric guitars use piezoelectricity
by deforming a crystal and creating voltage.
Not all crystals can generate electricity
though.
Piezoelectric crystals work because their
basic repeating building block that makes
them up is asymmetrical.
Normally the electrical charges of the atoms
in the building block are balanced out by
other nearby atoms, but when the crystal is
deformed, some atoms are pushed close together
while others are moved farther apart, upsetting
the balance.
The net effect is a positive charge on one
side of the crystal and a negative charge
on the other.
Quartz is a commonly used piezoelectric material
and according to the researchers, lysozyme
rivals it in efficiency.
But unlike quartz, lysozyme is a biological
material, meaning it’s non-toxic so it can
have use for medical applications.
Well, non-toxic to us, the enzyme helps break
down bacterial cell walls.
So researchers imagine this protein could
be used to coat medical implants to make them
electroactive AND anti-microbial.An implant
like this could use your own heartbeat to
generate power for a pacemaker, getting rid
of the need for batteries what will eventually
run flat and need to be replaced.
So the next time you’re crying over spilled
milk, maybe it’ll cheer you up to know that
one day your tears could power a medical breakthrough.
If you’ve got a sob story or one that makes
people cry tears of joy, you need to get it
out there!
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