Electricity from air - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 02, 2023, 08:43:24 pm
content: Quote from:https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/02/it-was-an-accident-the-scientists-who-have-turned-humid-air-into-renewable-powerandQuote

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2023, 01:42:41 am
content: As usual for Grauniad reporting, the "science coverage" actively de-educates the reader on the subject of science.The ancient Greeks "made electricity" with pieces of amber. What's new?

author: mengfei
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 04, 2023, 06:07:49 am
content: sometimes it's called static electricity

author: total-selena
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2023, 01:34:53 pm
content: Electricity from the air was easily extracted by our ancestors. This technology is 1000 years old. Domes with pins and mercury were used.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 09, 2023, 01:41:06 pm
content: Technology by itself is not dodgy. What's really dodgy is yet another sensationalist garbage article farted out by mass media.

author: switchabl
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2023, 05:42:04 pm
content: That seems unfair. The article discusses related research, funding, opinions from researchers (presumably) not linked to project and potential practical problems and makes it pretty clear that the technology is at an early stage and probably a long shot. They have clearly made an effort, not just copied some press release.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 10, 2023, 06:13:59 pm
content: Quote from: switchabl on July 10, 2023, 05:42:04 pmWrong, they have a bunch of loosely related lazy meaningless garbage prepared in stock to dilute meaningful information just to make 1500 word worthless read out of <100 words about actual topic. If you read their other articles about similar topics, likely you will find they reused that same garbage dozens of times by now.To worst are articles about Elon Musk or other influential person tweeting a short sentence with barely any meaning. They easily make 1000+ word read about that.

author: switchabl
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2023, 06:47:29 pm
content: I... am at a loss here. I am not sure we are talking about the same article? Admittedly I haven't read any of their articles about celebrities (this specific author doesn't seem to have written anything like that). But the article OP has posted is largely written around quotes from the lead author of the original paper, someone working on a similar project and three other professors from different universities commenting on their work. I don't even know how you would re-use that (unless they already had an earlier article on the same topic).I would personally have liked to read a bit more about the underlying physical mechanism. Unfortunately, from skimming the original paper, it seems that it is probably complex and still poorly understood. So it is maybe unsurprising that there little beyond some hand-waving.

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2023, 11:44:11 am
content: Quote from: switchabl on July 10, 2023, 06:47:29 pmhttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_water_dropper"We made a device from 1867 tiny...rEvOlUtIoNaRy ScIeNcE"

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 12, 2023, 01:18:51 pm
content: The water dropper relies on gravity to get the water flowing. I am not sure but perhaps the new version uses capillary action to move the water. If that's so then it is somewhat new and innovative even if the base of it (how the charge is generated) isn't.

author: switchabl
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2023, 04:47:05 pm
content: I don't really see how this is in any way similar to the Kelvin generator (except for the fact that they both somehow use water). There is no liquid water involved, just water vapour (air humidity), so there shouldn't be a capillary effect either.The mechanism they propose is based on surface charging, where water molecules that hit the surface of their nanoporous material can leave behind a charge. I would assume that the resulting ions are attracted to the charged surface and as those accumulate, the probability that they "take back" a charge increases. However, diffusion should counter this effect and the ambient air provides a huge reservoir of uncharged water molecules. The result will be some steady-state, depending on the current drawn.At least that is my rough take. I don't really have any meaningful domain expertise and I haven't followed up on the references they cite. So take it with a chunk of salt and feel free to tell me what I got wrong.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 13, 2023, 05:04:21 pm
content: QuoteAnything you didn't get right was likely nowhere near as wrong as the rest of us