The research, published in the journal Advanced Materials, builds on 2020 work that showed for the first time that energy can be obtained with the help of a bacteria-derived material extracted from moisture in the air. According to the new study, almost any material, such as wood or silicone, can be used as long as it can be crushed into tiny particles and reconstituted with microscopic pores. T wrote but there are many questions about how to broaden the product rangeis the Washington Post.
“What we found can be imagined as a small man-made cloud. It’s really a clean, accessible, massive, continuous source of energy. Imagine having clean electricity everywhere you go,” said Jun Yao, professor of engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and lead author of the study. .
This could be in the woods, while hiking in the mountains, in the desert, in a rural village, or on the road.
Known as Air-gen, an air-powered generator provides continuous, clean electricity by harnessing the power of perpetual humidity and not relying on the sun or wind. Unlike solar panels or wind turbines, which need special environments to work well, Air-gen can be used anywhere. – Yao said.
The device, about the size of a fingernail and thinner than a hair, is equipped with tiny openings called nanopores. The holes are less than 100 nanometers in diameter, or less than a thousandth the width of a human hair.
The tiny holes allow water in the air to pass through in a way that unbalances the charge in the top and bottom parts of the device, thus creating a battery that works continuously.
According to Yao’s estimates, about a billion wind generators, stacked roughly the size of a refrigerator, could produce one kilowatt and, under ideal conditions, could partially power a home. The team hopes that by making the device more efficient, they can reduce the number of necessary devices and their space requirements.
