SFINKS · SelF-powerIng electroNics – the Key to Sustainable future

Scientific and technological achievements are often accompanied with pollution of the planet. Even electronics, believed clean, produces waste counting in trillions of batteries. We propose a solution that consists in battery-less self-supplying and thus helping to keep our planet green.Surprisingly, not only seas are exhibiting tides, the atmospheric pressure (P) and temperature (T) also do something similar. SFINKS will try to spark a new era of battery-less electronics via exploitation of the natural P/T tides to produce electricity in innovative micro-generators. The MAGIC of the P/T tides resides in that they are always-delivering and omnipresent. Such generators will thus produce energy continuously, everywhere, regardless their location, installation or orientation. This sounds like a dream, but5 years after I got this idea my PhD students found a wonderful confirmation that the dream may become true. Early 17th century C.Drebbel constructed an Eltham Perpetuum clock based on the principle of P/T tides. One of its followers, the Beverly clock, is still running despite never having been wounded since 1864. However, for all these 400 years the invention has remained relatively bulky and stagnated at mechanical energy stage. In SFINKS we will firstly miniaturize it towards monolithic Silicon technology and develop innovative co-integrated conversion to electrical energy.Our target will be the first always-delivering generator using an omnipresent energy source, the first free of any installation constraints, and also the first micro-scale generator using P/T tides to produce electricity! It will unblock further expansion of Internet of Things removing its bottle-neck i.e. batteries. Thanks to their quasi-perpetual lifetime, the SFINKS harvesters are also well suited to work on Mars, Venus or on board of satellites, where the P or T variations are very present. Our dream is to send a few SFINKS powered sensors with a space exploration mission on Mars.