Inspenet, July 15, 2023.
Generate electrical energy from “nothing”?
The University of Massachusetts (UMAss) described in 2020 the progress achieved by its researchers: the creation of a device that uses a natural protein to generate electricity from air humidity.
The study was published in the journal Nature by Jun Yao, an engineer, and Derek Lovley, a microbiologist, who developed a device called the Air-gen . This contains protein nanowires grown from the bacterium Geobacter sulphurreducens. By connecting electrodes to these fine tubes, which are a few microns thick, an electrical current is produced using ambient humidity.
A new source?
Yao expressed his excitement by saying that they were generating electricity practically out of thin air. This technology was non-polluting and offered a low-cost, renewable solution that could generate power even indoors and in extremely dry areas such as the Sahara desert.
Since then, his goal was to take his invention to a commercial scale and develop devices capable of powering small electronic devices, such as smart watches, sensors to monitor the health of users, and even smartphones.
The University of Massachusetts team was not satisfied with the discovery they shared in 2020, and they continued to work on the research, which allowed them to publish a paper in ‘Advanced Materials’.
If their previous findings were promising, the results of their current study are just as impressive. They have shown that virtually any material can be turned into a device capable of generating electricity from moisture. To achieve this, they have switched from using nanowires to using tiny perforations. The key lies in the incorporation of nanopores with a diameter of less than 100 nanometers, which is equivalent to less than one thousandth of the thickness of a human hair.
“What we realized after making the Geobacter discovery is that the ability to generate electricity from air, what we call the ‘Air-gen effect,’ turns out to be generic: literally any type of material can harvest electricity from the air.” air, as long as it has a certain property”, explains Yao, who celebrates that, although “simple”, his idea “opens up all kinds of possibilities”.
How does it work?
“Air contains an enormous amount of electricity,” recalls the UMass professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering before using similes to explain his proposal: “Think of a cloud, which is nothing more than a mass of water droplets. Each of those droplets contains a charge, and when the conditions are right, the cloud can produce lightning, but we don’t know how to reliably capture the electricity from lightning, so what we did was create a small-scale cloud built by humans that predictably and continuously produces electricity for us to harvest.”
The basis for this technology lies in research by Lovley and Yao, who explored the possibilities of using protein nanowires grown with Geobacter sulphurreducens. The choice of 100 nm nanopores is due to the “mean free path” of the water molecules, that is, the distance that a molecule travels before colliding with another similar molecule.
The idea is to use a layer full of nanopores that allows the passage of water molecules from the top to the bottom. Since the first layer will receive more charge-carrying molecules, an imbalance similar to that found in a cloud is created.
What possibilities does it offer?
In 2020, researchers already glimpsed the possibilities of the Air-gen, both in the field of renewable energy and in the design of specific medical devices.
Three years later, his approach is still just as ambitious: “Air humidity is a significant sustainable energy source that, unlike solar or wind power, is constantly available,” the Advanced Materials article states. .
According to his study, his proposal to capture energy from moisture can be applied to a “wide range” of materials, as long as they have nanopores that allow water to pass through.
We are paving the way for clean electricity from air,” said Xiaomeng Liu, one of the paper’s authors. At UMass they also point out that humidity is always present, which would make it possible to obtain energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and solve one of the challenges of renewable energies such as wind or solar: the fluctuations that result in mismatches between power generation and real demand.
Are they the only ones working on this type of project?
No, other researchers have also been interested in hygroelectricity, that is, the generation of electricity from humidity. We recently mentioned the EU-backed Catcher project, which seeks to convert atmospheric moisture into electricity.
In this project, Svitlana Lyubckyk and her children, the promoters of CascataChuva, have developed a revolutionary technological solution to produce electricity directly from the energy absorbed by moisture.
Source and photo: https://www.xataka.com/energia/electricidad-a-partir-humedad-aire-asi-plantean-estos-cientificos-lograr-energia-renovable-interrupciones/amp
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