Styrofoam can generate static electricity, but what if more energy generated by subjecting the recycled material to wind and motion could be leveraged to help run air conditioners and other equipment?

The basic principles of such a premise were demonstrated by an invention made from waste polystyrene, commonly known as Styrofoam, by researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia, in collaboration with Riga Technical University in Latvia. The researchers published their findings in Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research earlier this year.

The researchers developed thin patches made from multiple layers of polystyrene, each around one-tenth the thickness of a human hair, and then blew air on the patches’ surfaces to produce static electricity up to 230V.

“Plastics are like millions of little strands and when you put two plastic films together these strands get knotted together,” said Peter Sherrell, lead researcher, in an October 2024 RMIT blog post. “When these knots break, there’s a little bit of charge on each part of that broken bond.”

The researchers were able to make the insides of reformed polystyrene rub across each other in a controlled way, making all the charge pull in the same direction to produce electricity, Sherrell said. This energy could then be harvested within a variety of applications.

“The biggest numbers come from a compression and separation, where you’ve got faster speeds and bigger motion, while smaller motion generates less energy,” he said. “There’s potential for energy from the turbulent exhaust of air conditioning units to be collected that could reduce the energy demand by up to 5% and, ultimately, lower the carbon footprint of the system.”

In addition to air conditioners, integrating polystyrene patches in high-traffic areas such as underground walkways could supplement local energy supply without creating additional demand on the grid, Sherrell said. More energy could be harvested with additional layers of polystyrene.

RMIT has filed for a patent for this invention and is now seeking industry partners to invest in developing it for commercial technologies.

Not only could this technology help offset the energy use of air conditioners and other applications, but it could also potentially minimize the amount of Styrofoam sent to landfills, he said. Indeed, more than 25 million tons of single-use polystyrene packaging materials are made globally each year, but only a tiny fraction is recycled.

According to Sherrell, polystyrene’s longevity is actually a benefit in this case—“it takes 500 years for polystyrene to break down in landfill, [which] makes these devices really stable¾and able to keep making electricity for a long time,” Sherrell said.