New Method To Generate Electricity from Water

spaceling writes "The BBC reports reporting on research published in the Institute of Physics Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering of the first new method of generating electricity in over 150 years. Larry Kostiuk and Daniel Kwok 'created a glass block, two centimetres in diameter and three millimetres thick, containing about 400,000 to 500,000 individual channels...[and] generated about 10 volts with a current of around a milliamp. This allowed the team to successfully power a lightbulb.'" This has also been covered all over the place.

Comments

Sounds like a van der Graaf

[panurge]

In fact, I've seen van der Graafs that work by using a flow of dielectric fluid rather than the rubber belt of the school versions. Admittedly they generate megavolts rather than volts - but isn't the basic method the same? i.e. charge separation.

Also, the electricity isn't generated from the water. It's generated using the kinetic energy of flowing water - just like a turbine or waterwheel, and something needs to produce the kinetic energy in the first place...excuse me while I go and check my cold fusion plant, the room temperature seems a bit low.

Re:Sounds like a van der Graaf

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, just a static charge from a moving fluid. Electrostatic charges can be generated by airflow over the correct matieral. Air is a fluid, abiet less dense than water. No big discovery here. Next they will make transistors out of specifically doped concrete and pour radios...etc for sidewalks...(McQuown Effect). McQuown doped cookie dough and baked a transistor for a science fair project in the 1970's. It was a PNP device.
Not at all tasty. No prize was awarded. Too bad ya cannot eat gallium arsenide...

Re:So now we end up fighting wars over water?

[Gorny]

There are lot of (more or less potential violent) wars over water. Turkey has build waterpowered electricity plants which use so much water that other surrounding countries saw their waterlevels drop. There are more examples besides this one from the Tigris: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/943002.stm

Yes.. I think it's entirely possible to have real wars in the future not to establisch democracy in a country, or to expand the territory of the aggressor but entirely focussed on the water.

Re:My 2 cents

[Robmonster]

For my physics A-level practical some 7-8 years ago now I tried pumping salt water through a tube inside a magnetic field. Two electrodes on opposite sides of the tube measured the voltage across it. You could see that voltage generated was propotional to the speed of the water and the amount of salt it contained.

Re:medical uses

[WegianWarrior]

According to this page, the avrage red bloodcell is about 9um in diameter, so pouring blood down a channel just 10um wide is asking for trouble. The downside is that - as far as I can understand the article - that the size of the channel is vital for the functioning of the generator.

*ponders* Hmm... urine is mostly water, isn't it... ?

Re:So now we end up fighting wars over water?

[Dun Malg]

There are lot of (more or less potential violent) wars over water.

You make a very important point. Heck, look at how we fight over water in the US. We don't generally have "shootin' wars" over it anymore, but there's certainly a lot of acrimony. The various states arguing over how much water they can keep behind the dams and how much they can take out for irrigation on the Colorado river, for example. The California aqueduct taking most of the water in the Owens valley area and piping it down to Los Angeles caused a fair amount of strife too. I was driving around northern Nevada once about 10 years ago and I saw signs in store windows that said "Don't let Las Vegas take our water". Access to fresh water has been a central issue to civilization for eons. Heck, the first thing those monkey dudes in the beginning of "2001: A Space Oddessey" did after seeing the monolith and "gettin' wise" was grab bludgeons and chase off those other monkey dudes from the watering hole. Just a movie, but it makes an important point.

Personal electric generation.... My shoes!

[Wubby]

Why not put a couple pumps (no pun intended) in the soles of shoes? As I walk around I could generate the power I need to recharge my phone/low power laptop.

Hey, maybe it would force me to exercise more.

*ring ring*
ME: Hey... Bob... what's... up....[huff puff]
BOB: Dude, why are you outta breath?
ME: Phone... dying... needed... recharge...[cough]

Kids wanna play thier Gameboy... make 'em walk the dog! (hmm, mini paw sized pumps)

Does it have to be a liquid?

[LWATCDR]

Could a gas,like steam work as well?
What about superheated air?
This could be a replacement for turbins.

A Practical Use

[Aidtopia]

More and more public restrooms have those infrared detectors to flush toilets and run the faucets. I bet they all have batteries in them. Batteries run down, disposal of them is an environmental problem, etc.

If this gizmo provides enough power to run the detector and the valve, it may be a perfect application. You already have water running through the device.

Re:A hype?

[GospelHead821]

According to the paper, itself, they seem to be interested more in powering MEMS. I can imagine many situations in which a chip designed to analyze a fluid wouldn't require a battery because the chip's sensors will be powered by electricity generated as the pressurized fluid traverses an "electrokinetic microchannel battery" at the front end of the chip. If they can increase the efficiency and insure that a thumb-operated pump (like the primer on your lawnmower) would provide sufficient pressure to drive the battery, this could be a really useful innovation.