How does sound wave energy get converted into electricity and why is it less efficient than solar energy?
In: Physics
I’ll add one other thing to what people are saying, there are materials that are “piezoelectric” which means that when you deform them by applying force to change their shape they wind up with a net electric field, and similarly if you apply an electric field to them they deform their shape. These materials are used to make small cheap speakers (mainly ones that just need to beep or buzz and not have a wide range of frequencies they accurately produce) or small cheap microphones.
So these can be used to generate electricity from sound, but it’s just not a lot of energy to be gathered from sound. They do have applications with more powerful and directed sources of mechanical strain, for example they’re used to generate sparks for some lighters or gas stoves when you push a little button the mechanical energy gets turned into electrical energy to make a spark.
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