Powering small devices with water [new method of making electricity MSNBC]

[truthisfreedom]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/982699.asp?0cv=TA00

Powering small devices with water


Small electric charge could be used in calculators, phones


By James Pearce

Oct. 20 — Canadian scientists have developed a method of generating electricity from water for use in small devices, which could pave the way for products such as liquid-powered calculators and mobile phones.
<snip>
       The power generated from a single channel is extremely small—a 30cm column of water will produce one to two microamps (one millionth of an amp)—but the researchers envisage millions of parallel channels being used to increase the power output to a level sufficient to power small electrical devices such as mobile phones and calculators.
       The system requires input of energy in the form of applying pressure to the liquid in the channels. Mobiles powered by this method would not be plugged into power mains to recharge, but would require pumping.

       “The applications in electronics and microelectronic devices are very exciting,” Kostiuk said. “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. What we have achieved so far is to show that electrical power can be directly generated from flowing liquids in microchannels.”
       The research was published recently in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering published by the Institute of Physics.

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edited to show more here also:
http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s971598.htm
http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2003-10-20-9

[SeveneightyWhoa]

1. Yesss! My University.

Wow, this is getting big media attention. I'm pretty proud that this discovery was made at the University I go to..!

[JackDragna]

2. More junk science

One cannot get more energy out of water than what one puts into it. Whatever energy achieved from putting water under pressure will be less than that required to exert the pressure.

[truthisfreedom]

3. junk science? i beg your pardon.

methods of generating electricity are ALWAYS less than 100% efficient. you are being completely illogical. what they have introduced is yet ANOTHER METHOD to generate it, not a perpetual motion machine or free energy machine.

junk science is a description for the conservative's view that global warming doesn't exist (warmest september on record this year in US) and that the scientists who say it does are biased because they're... scientists.

this, on the other hand, is a wonderful scientific discovery and you should really think about what you say before you say it.

[arwalden]

4. Isn't There Some Sort Of "Pressure Generator" That Fits Inside...

... the heel of one's shoe? At least a concept of something like this exists I believe.

By simply walking, one charges the batteries to their cell phone or pda, etc.

If I recall correctly, it's the pressure on a liquid that causes electrical energy to be released and stored. But I watch so much science-channel and TLC and DISCOVERY that I sometimes confuse them with the SCI-FI channel too.

-- Allen

[Zhade]

8. Yes. The military uses it in soldiers' boots. I saw it on Tech TV.

http://www.techtv.com/freshgear/pipeline/story/0,23008,3376016,00.html

[arwalden]

20. Thanks! I *KNEW* I Wasn't Going Crazy!! This Is Exactly What I Recall...

... hearing about. Thanks for the link.

-- Allen

[demdave]

24. Brought to you by DARPA

Don't let the tinfoil guys find out about the DARPA connection or they will throw the baby out with the bath water.

[northzax]

19. hey now. junk science

is using a one month temperature grade in one region as evidence of system change on an entire planet. that's the ultimate in junk science.

[mutus_frutex]

21. No, it probably isn't.

When the region is as large as the US, and is made up of quasi
climatologically independent regions, it is probably a good
indicator of  global changes.

[JackDragna]

26. I did think about it.

A new way of "generating electricity" is sort of useless when one has to input more energy into the system than one gets out of it.

I'm also keen to see what the cost is of generating this electricity. I'm willing to wager that, for example, using this chips to recover energy from other processes is not cost-effective. It's nice to find new ways of generating electricity, but it has to be cheap enough to be used in practical applications.

[Hammie]

32. Generation of electricity is useless?

I've been a lurker here for a long time, but this post finally got me off the dime.

All forms of generating electricity require more energy to be input than is received back in the form of electricity. The second law of thermodynamics demands it.

JD (good initials btw), I assume that you're science education was on par with my english education.

What is alarming is that JD is not alone in his lack of understanding of basic physical concepts. An electorate without a basic understanding of physical concepts is helpless to defend itself from quackery.

JD: What the inventors seen to be claiming is that their invention is able to harness some of the kinetic energy of flowing water into an electrical current. The main differences between this device and conventional hydroelectric generation is that this invention is very small and appears to use no moving parts except for the flowing water.

As to its practicality, it clearly depends on what application it is being considered for and how much it costs compared to the available options.

For instance if I go to a remote area for the weekend and I want electricity, I use a small gasoline powered generator. Not because it is the most efficient means of producing electricity, but because it is the least costly of my avaliable options.

If I was contemplating remote self powered rain gauges, the above invention might be perfect for me. Even if it were fairly expensive, the fact that it had no moving parts and the energy source could be the very parameter I wish to measure (precipitation) might make it a very good choice.

[rman]

12. no-one said it produces more energy then is put into it. n/t

-

[mutus_frutex]

22. Look at the final paragraph of this paper's abstract:

"This results in a new and potentially useful method of energy conversion by means of an array of microchannels."

From:

http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0960-1317/13/6/320/

Cheers..

[lfairban]

5. Wouldn't it be easier to use a crank . . .

. . . and a small electrical generator? What is the use of employing a 30 cm column of water? I think it would make the calculator or cell phone unacceptably cumbersome.

[truthisfreedom]

6. the pressure of a 30 cm column of water, as naturally occurs by the weight

has nothing to do with the idea of pressurized water in a cell phone. they gave that as an example of what occurs when you are working with water that provides pressure using height. the idea is, water could generate its own pressure if it came from a high reservoir, which occurs in a lot of mechanical situations like water towers... and what's special about this is there's no mechanical movement necessary and the device can be very small, so it's essentially solid-state and probably would last forever. on the other hand, electro-mechanical devices are generally prone to breakdown and require regular service. i think that early applications would be limited to low-power devices that need to be small in size.

[JackDragna]

27. I just don't see how this is useful.

I am immediately skeptical of any power research involving water. Water is an extremely stable molecule and the charge gradient between it and glass would be very small indeed. The ratio of energy gained from the system vs. the energy required to make it run would be very, very small.

[mutus_frutex]

28. Skepticism does not mean distrust

It is people like you that give a bad name to skeptics like me (:-).

"I am immediately skeptical of any power research involving water."

Therefore, are you skeptical of hydroelectric power??

"Water is an extremely stable molecule and the charge gradient between it and glass would be very small indeed."

Did you read the paper, by any chance? First of all, the presence of a electrical potential does not imply the chemical dissociation of a molecule, just a separation of charge, which is present naturally in the water molecule. Thus, the water molecule is not broken, simply reoriented. The reorientation is fueled by the asymmetry created by the presence of the charged wall.

"The ratio of energy gained from the system vs. the energy required to make it run would be very, very small."

That means the system has low efficiency, not that is physically impossible. To make it more efficient requires more research in the area of microfluidics, which is a very young field.

You should be excited about this, but you sound more like you work for an oil company... :-)

Cheers..

[The_Casual_Observer]

7. Either the water is elevated by the Sun (evaporation)

or you spend fuel energy to get it there. No other options.

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. OOPS! The moon can do it too - tides.

[whirlygigspin]

10. links with video

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1066645759515_78///?hub=Specials#

http://www.iop.org/news/632

http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/0960-1317/13/6/320/

[truthisfreedom]

11. yeah, well, whatever the mechanism, we already use that energy in the form

of hydroelectric power.

[Point_n_click]

13. Think about some of the potential ...

This is indeed a breakthrough. Sure we already have hydro-electric power and yes this does require a source of mechanical pressure to activate the electricity generation, BUT here's where it gets good ...

We waste so much potential energy on a daily, near constant basis that could easily be harnessed to generate the pressure for these kinds of systems.

Imagine creating a pressure system underneath our roadways. The pressure generated by driving heavy vehicles over pavement is enough to do what this requires. No, it won't replace enough electricity from other sources to do away with them, but it will help reduce the need from some of the other sources.

Likewise on smaller scales we can do the same thing in the floors of buildings that have heavy foot traffic, and in the heels of shoes (no more polluting batteries needed to make your shoes blink) to recharge batteries in other things.

Also we have thousands of things already functioning mechanically that could have a small pump attached that would turn some of that motion into the pressure needed to augment electricity generation. While driving your car or truck you could have a pump system run by the turning motion of the wheels that would help generate additional power for running some of the systems in the car thus reducing the drain on the battery.

Even though this isn't likely to replace other generation methods it can certainly help recoup some of the energy wasted generating it, and perhaps eventually reduce the need for some of the most harmful means.

[Dover]

15. I think they already utilize breaking pressure in some hybrid cars.

It recharges thru breaking pressure.

At least that's what I understood it to do.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. if you make the road pressure do any work

then the vehicles will have to use more energy to go across the surface, because it will have moved down.

Note that the energy conversion is very inefficient so far (but then so is making batteries, and this doesn't involve poisonous chemicals). There might be applications replacing batteries (as people have said, some things are already done with walking, or watches that get their energy from the movement of your wrist).
There is no drain on the battery when you're driving you car: the alternator provides the electrical energy. There's no reason at all to believe this will ever rival the efficiency of an alternator.

If we were really concerned with conserving energy, we'd walk and cycle a lot more, or ride mopeds, and make the road more friendly to these.

[Robb]

17. I see a poaching potential here

I think of my little town, and the highway that runs by it. Drive-through burgs like mine could one day run their grid on traffic... :)

[Dover]

14. Are they saying this works like hydroelectric power?

I'm a little confused and NOT a scientist by any stretch, so help me out here.
Are they saying it is the pressure of the water or is it the neg./pos. ion exchange over a solid surface?

[mutus_frutex]

23. It could be considered analogous, but there is a difference..

Hydroelectric power is the conversion of mechanical energy (coming from the diferent gravitational potential the water has at the top and bottom of the dam) into electrical energy by means of a dynamo (which exploits the properties of Maxwell's equations).

In this case you have that in the interface between a liquid and a solid a charge separation is formed naturally. What they do is make one type of charges (the ones in the liquid) flow by applying pressure. Charge in movement=electricity. Therefore this is a conversion of mechanical energy into electricity by means of a chemical properties.

Somebody mentioned that the main advantage this has comes from the fact that the number of moving parts is minimal, it uses no harmful chemicals and is seriously renewable.

Cheers..

[northzax]

18. and technically

there is a slight electrostatic charge in saltwater that is not present in freshwater. So we could conceivably run ocean going vessels off of this free electricity.

right. and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

[mutus_frutex]

25. If instead of flying out of you butt

you put those monkeys in the boat and make them pump water, yes, the boat would have a source of power.. :-)

Cheers..

(Some people should read THE PAPER before making comments..)

[ParanoidPat]

30. To paraphrase an old saying....

....You can lead a person to knowledge but you can't make them think! :evilgrin:

[ozone_man]

29. Well, I think it's interesting.

I was slightly skeptical of our fluidics experiments in college, like where are they going with this stuff? But I like this finding, not for energy production, but energy transfer potential. Like they say, remote (small) power is one application.

[diamond14]

31. Austria powers their WHOLE COUNTRY from water...the Austrians

do not burn coal (which they have in their mountains) and do not use nuclear power...they run their whole country on water....and have for many years....