Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Scientists Generate Electricity from Water

From: "Rik Rasmussen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2003 18:52:40 -0500

Mon 20 Oct 2003

3:00am (UK)
Scientists Generate Electricity from Water

By John von Radowitz, Science Correspondent, PA News

A team of scientists has discovered a completely new way to make electricity
from nothing more than flowing water, it was revealed today.

The breakthrough, the first new method of electricity production for 160
years, could provide free, clean energy for devices such as mobile phones
and calculators.

On a large scale, it could conceivably be used to feed power into the
national grid.

Dr David Lynch, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of
Alberta in Canada, where the technology was developed, said: “The discovery
of an entirely new way of producing power is an incredible fundamental
research breakthrough that occurs once in a lifetime.”

A “water powered” mobile phone would contain a small reservoir pressurised
by a hand pump.

Electricity is generated as the water is released and surges through an
array of tiny microchannels.

The system relies on the natural “electrokinetic” effect of a fluid flowing
over a solid surface.

An interplay of forces results in a thin layer of water – where it meets the
surface – with a net electric charge.

This region is known as the Electric Double Layer (EDL). Normally it goes
unnoticed, but the Alberta scientists found that forcing water through a
channel with a diameter similar to the EDL produces a flowing current.

The amount of electricity generated by one microchannel is minute. But
millions of parallel channels can produce enough power to operate electronic
equipment such as a mobile phone.

Professor Larry Kostiuk, a thermodynamicist at the university, hit on the
idea after a chance conversation with a fellow scientist about
surface-interface phenomena.

It was a case of the figurative light bulb turning on inside his head.
Later, he and nanofabrication researcher Professor Daniel Kwok – the other
party in the conversation – illuminated a real light bulb by passing water
through a porous glass filter.

Their findings were published today in the Journal of Micromechanics and
Microengineering.

Professor Kostiuk said: “This discovery has a huge number of possible
applications. It could be a new alternative energy source to rival wind and
solar power, although this would need huge bodies of water to work on a
commercial scale.

“Hydrocarbon fuels are still the best source of energy, but they’re fast
running out and so new options like this one could be vital in the future.

“This technology could provide a new power source for devices such as mobile
phones or calculators which could be charged up by pumping water to high
pressure.”

The laboratory test generated a current of between one and two microamps
using the pressure delivered by a 30 centimetre column of water.

By using a saltier solution, the scientists found they could obtain a larger
current.

A spokesman for the Institute of Physics, which publishes the journal, said:
“This research is very exciting, and could open up a whole new way of
generating electricity in the future, including batteries for use in small
devices such as mobile phones.

“In future, we might be able to produce electricity on a large scale this
way, perhaps even enough for power grids.”

No other method of generating a sustained electric current has been
developed since 1839.

Alessandro Volta discovered the original electrochemical effect used in
batteries in the year 1800.

In 1821 Thomas Seebeck introduced the Seebeck Effect, the basis of
thermoelectric generators. He showed how electricity can be produced from
two adjoining metals with different temperatures.

Ten years later Michael Faraday revealed how current can be generated
through electromagnetic induction.

In 1839 Edmond Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect used in solar
cells. Sir William Grove demonstrated the technology behind the fuel cell in
the same year.