The scientists to decline a new and intelligent way to enjoy the rain, “such a neglected natural resource,” and generates electricity from the falling rain.
A study last week at ACS Central Science announced a new way to use the Rain to generate electricity.
A group of researchers from the National University of Singapore developed a device that captures electricity of rainflowers that fall through a simple vertical tube.
As they say, a turbine or solar panel was not needed… basic: When water moves over a conductive surface of electricity, it creates a load.
“Rain falls to Earth every day. All the energy is wasted due to the lack of a system to collect rain energy,” says the corresponding study author, Siowling sohin statements to.
As the same magazine writes, usually, when it generates electricity from water, the movement of a large amount of water is used to trigger a turbine in a river, in the sea or even in drinking water conducts. However, water flowing over a conductive surface of electricity can also generate its own electrical charge through a process called loading.
The phenomenon is usually an ineffective way of generating electricity, because the electrical charge is created only on the surface where water touches and, if we use channels in micro or nanoscala to increase the surface area, we need more energy to pump water into them than to remove it.
However, the new study invites physicists to repeat this theory by creating a simple installation that is based on gravity to move the water through a 32 -centimeter vertical tube and an interior diameter of 2 mm.
Water comes out of the bottom of a container through a horizontal stainless steel needle, then falling toward the lower tube. As the rain -like droplets collide at the top of the tube, they capture air bags, creating what is called a buffer flow as they fall.
This disarticulated flow seems to help the electric charges of molecules of water to separate as they travel through the tube. The wires at the top and bottom of the tube then collect the electricity generated.
“From the rain it was light”
In an experience, a tube produced 440 microwatts. When investigators used four simultaneous tubes, they managed to feed 12 LEDs for 20 seconds.
“We can, for the first time, collect the energy of the rainor other natural sources such as rivers or waterfalls, through the separation of loads in the solid-liquid interface, ”said Soh, quoted by the New Scientist.
The amount of electricity generated may not seem particularly impressive, but Soh ensures that the installation has converted to electricity more than 10% of the water energy that falls through the tubes.
Researchers notice that this approach can one day be used in Roof -based systems to collect a lot of rain energy.
