Electricity From Air

[4-20mA]

You read that right. Now, read this and see what you think. I'm not convinced, but it sure is interesting. Let's see where it goes.

Engineers at UMass Amherst Harvest Abundant Clean Energy from Thin Air, 24/7 | UMass Amherst

Researchers describe the “generic Air-gen effect”—nearly any material can be engineered with nanopores to harvest, cost effective, scalable, interruption-free electricity.

www.umass.edu

 

[ptonsparky]

My 1st thought... aren't we doing that now with moving air?

 

[ptonsparky]

How do they expect to keep those nanopores from plugging up? Maybe that's small enough it can't?

 

[4-20mA]

My 1st thought... aren't we doing that now with moving air?

Sure we make electricity with air, just not quite like this, ha!

 

[4-20mA]

How do they expect to keep those nanopores from plugging up? Maybe that's small enough it can't?

There's a lot to question here, you start with a good one

 

[Joethemechanic]

I'm thinking this is going to end up producing enough energy to charge your cell phone in 10 or 12 days provided conditions are just right

Wasn't there a university behind that Waterseer thing that was going to harvest water out of thin air. And it was going to quench the thirst of poor little children living in the desert

And even if it did work, have you ever tasted condensate water?

 

[4-20mA]

And even if it did work, have you ever tasted condensate water?

I have not. But maybe the bad taste came from your hands on the outside of the glass you licked the condensate from. I can't imagine evaporator coil condensate made water being any better...

Screw it, I'll bite. Where did you taste yours?


Then, back to the topic at hand some too lol

 

[retirede]

And even if it did work, have you ever tasted condensate water?

The taste of condensate will be derived from the material it condenses on.
Distilled water is condensate and it has no taste at all.

 

[drcampbell]

... even if it did work, have you ever tasted condensate water?

Unless I completely misunderstand the Hydrological Cycle, that's the only kind of water I've ever tasted.

Hydrologic Cycle

The water cycle describes how water is exchanged (cycled) through Earth's land, ocean, and atmosphere.

education.nationalgeographic.org

 

[Joethemechanic]

Screw it, I'll bite. Where did you taste yours?

Working on a big industrial cooler on the production line in a food plant. Thing is like 20 feet tall 25 feet long and 12 feet wide. Crazy conveyor system runs all through it carrying trays of product. They called us and said there was a chiller water leak (Huge chiller system up on the plant roof). Dim in there and all kinds of machinery so it's hard to find leaks. So I told my buddy to take the top and I'd crawl under. I saw that one of the condensate drains was missing a hose clamp so I pulled it off and there was no condensate coming down. Right about then my buddy stuck a long screwdriver down from the top and cleared the clog. It's like a 2 inch pipe and the condensate catch pans were filled to the top I'll bet there was at least 50 gallons in there and I was in a spot so tight I had to wiggle to get in

 

[Joethemechanic]

The taste of condensate will be derived from the material it condenses on.

From my experience it tends to have a lot of dust in it from the airflow

 

[4-20mA]

Thanks for the story. I'm not completely surprised

 

[winnie]

The article doesn't explain what the ultimate source of the energy is, and so triggers a 'perpetual motion scam' warning flag when I read it.

I followed the link to the journal article and IMHO the device is plausible but oversold. They have a system which develops a surface charge when water evaporates or condenses. Ok, lots of energy is exchanged when water changes state, so extraciting a bit of that is plausible.

But it only works when water is changing state. If you have a desiccant container in a humid room, water will condense and the desiccant will heat up, but only until the desiccant is saturated.

This system, if it works, will only produce electricity when it is not in equilibrium with its ambient conditions.

It could (in theory!) produce electricity on a somewhat continuous basis if ambient conditions are changing (diurnal fluctuations in humidity levels), or if some external source maintains a humidity gradient (evaporation to dry air in a location where sun keeps the air dry).

But at best this device is extracting energy from humidity gradients, not creating electricity from equilibrium air.

Think about clocks that are wound by barometric pressure changes, and you get an idea about where this thing might be useful.

 

[Joethemechanic]

Thanks for the story. I'm not completely surprised

I fell into a sewage lagoon at a sewer plant in Trenton NJ one time. Guess what that tasted like.