Electricity from Noise Pollution

ound energy is well known to have a healing potential to the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of the person; enabling the individual to return to a state of harmony and balance through the use of sound

frequencies within tolerable limits. But sound created by human or machines above a particular decibel level becomes noise pollution which is harmful to health or welfare of people affected by such an atmosphere.

Causes of Noise Pollution

Noise is a byproduct of human activity and the background noise levels have been found to be increasing year after year. Moreover, the modern technology for achieving greater productivity necessarily deals with greater speeds, higher fluid pressures and velocity and more powerful machinery which, creates the undesirable noise. Transportation vehicles are the worst offenders, with aircraft, railroad stock, trucks, buses, automobiles, and motorcycles all producing excessive noise. Construction equipment, e.g., jackhammers and bulldozers, also produce substantial noise pollution.

Consequences of noise pollution

Excessive noise can result in loss of hearing, increase in accidents, decrease of productivity, speech communication interference and various physiological and psychological effects on human. Hence, it is essential to take suitable precautions to reduce noise pollution. Unfortunately, noise pollution has not been given enough

importance in our country and there are no statutory standards for this purpose. Hence, there is a great need to make use of this unwanted resource.

Producing electricity from sound

We all know that it is possible to produce electricity from sound. Devices that do this t are called transducers which convert energy from one form to another form. Sound waves are mechanical energy and a transducer can convert this mechanical energy ransducer into electrical energy. Microphones are transducers which detect sound signals and produce an electrical image of the sound, i.e., they produce a voltage or a current which is proportional to the sound signal. Sound waves are converted to electrical energy which then goes to ound electrical the rest of the electrical circuitry for processing, transmission, etc. The most common microphones (as shown in figure) for musical use are dynamic, ribbon, or condenser microphones. Besides the variety of basic mechanisms, microphones can be designed with different directional patterns and different impedances.

Different types of microphones

Characteristics of microphones
All these types of microphone have different advantages and disadvantages but the microphones dynamic microphones are versatile and ideal for general purpose use. They use a general-purpose simple design with few moving parts. They are relatively sturdy and resilient to rough handling. They are also better suited to handling high volume levels. They have no suited levels internal amplifier and do not require batteries or external power. The principle involved in dynamic microphone is that sound moves the cone and the attached coil

of wire moves in the field of a magnet. The generator effect produces a voltage which "images" the sound pressure variation - characterized as a pressure microphone.

The working principle of microphone

Sound conversion is accomplished at the input side using a microphone that generates an electrical signal in function of the sound waves. The working principle of a microphone is quite simple as: the air density changes of the sound makes a membrane vibrate; attached to the membrane is a magnet that moves with the vibrations inside a coil. The movement of the magnet induces a current in the coil. The idea is based on the same scheme as microphone but for the purpose of generating electricity we can think of huge or array of microphones installed near noisy places to perform like windmill. It is possible that sound waves at the kinds of noisy sites referred here would carry enough energy to generate economically useful amounts of electricity for everyday situations. Moreover, there are situations where small amounts of electricity generated from sound would be of value. Presently, even if we surrounded the noise place with devices capable of converting that noise into useful energy we would only capture a tiny amount of the total energy being available in the noise pollution zone and it would cost a lot of money to do it. Further, S & T developments in sensitive diaphragm and sound energy concentration on the line of solar concentrators will enhance the efficiency and also reduce cost of sound energy conversion into electricity. However, it will be great to see this creative idea of converting wasted sound energy into useful energy working.
"Generator converting noise energy into electricity

Recent advances in energy conversion have also shown a great hope in this direction. Researchers from Los Alamos National Laboratory and Northrop Grumman Space Technology (USA) have built a compact generator that converts heat to electricity with

the relatively high efficiency of 18 percent. The generator uses a small version of a thermoacoustic sterling engine developed at Los Alamos in 1999. That engine converted heat to acoustic energy using no moving parts. Compressed helium cycles between heat exchangers, and the movement of the gas generated sound waves. In the generator, the sound waves from the engine drive a piston, which moves a coiled copper wire. As the wire moves through a magnetic field produced by a permanent magnet it produces electricity. The generator is simple, making it potentially long-lived and easy to maintain. This makes it especially appropriate for generating electricity aboard spacecraft, according to the researchers. The researchers' next steps are to better match the engine and alternator to make the engine more efficient, and to reduce the engine's volume. Though, noise is undesirable in general but it is indispensable in many cases of its generation. Observe silence slogans never fit to crowded places like bus stations, railway stations and airports etc. Noise pollution at such places can be put to a meaningful application if it can be converted into electric energy with the help of an array of microphones or thermo-acoustic engines. Microphones equipped with powerful magnets like Neodymium magnets can be made smaller, with more linear frequency response and higher output level. Let us hope that further scientific and technological developments in microphone technology as well as in thermo-acoustic sterling engine will improve the efficiency of sound energy conversion into electricity. The noise pollution which is a waste-resource thus can be put into the best use for mankind. Dr. S.S.Verma Dept. of Physics, SLIET, Longowal (Punjab)-148 106, E-mail: ssverma@fastmail.fm
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