Scientists make electricity from tap water

This is just another example of the ability to create electricity via water but with a new and ingenious twist, tiny little holes that create a charge as water molecules are forced through, its based on the electrokinetic properties of liquids.

Canada again comes forth with a truly important and ingenious way to harness nature in another way.

Cheers to Canada

Scientists have discovered a new way of generating electricity using water, the first innovatory method for 200 years. A team of Canadian researchers has found that an electrical current can be produced between the ends of a microscopic channel when a fluid flows through it. The technique offers a potential source of clean, non-polluting electric power with a variety of possible uses, ranging from powering small electronic devices such as calculators or mobile phones to vast stations that can contribute to the national grid.

The method, which harnesses the "electrokinetic" properties of liquids such as ordinary tap water when they are pumped through microscopic channels, is described today in the Institute of Physics publication Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering. The research has been led by Prof Daniel Kwok and Prof Larry Kostiuk at the University of Alberta. They suggest that a mobile phone could be powered by squirting water at high pressure through an array of such channels. Prof Kostiuk said: "This discovery has a huge number of possible applications. It's possible that it could be a new alternative energy source to rival wind and solar power, but this would need huge bodies of water to work on a commercial scale.

The energy source for this device is the work done to push the liquid through the channel. Although the power generated from a single channel is tiny, millions of parallel channels can be used to increase the output.

The channels can be made from any non-conducting material such as glass, plastics, rocks or ceramics. Standard commercial filters made of these materials already have the millions of channels that can be used. The key to the phenomenon is the way that charges naturally separate at the interface between the surface of a channel and a fluid. Scientists believe that this occurs because minute parts of the solid of one charge (either positive or negative) dissolve into the water. As a result, the surface becomes charged. Opposite-charged ions (charged atoms) in the liquid are attracted to it, while like-charged ions are repelled, resulting in a thin liquid layer with a net charge, called the Electric Double Layer, measuring a few billionths to a few millionths of a metre across.

A typical setup using a ceramic filter and tap water can produce 10 volts and the current depends on the size of the filter. Since large water pressures are not needed, natural flows of water can be harnessed. These could include tidal water flows, underground aquifers, dammed water, drinking water currently being filtered by utilities companies to improve its clarity, and rain falling from roofs.

the link will not embed properly, you will have to copy and paste
www.telegraph.co.uk.../news/2003/10/20/welec20.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/10/20/ixworld.html




[edit on 9-6-2007 by junglelord]

Wowsville!

This could be really, really huge.

I'm really hoping that there will be an energy breakthrough in my lifetime that will put petroleum in the same catagory as whale oil.

imagine making electricity via the running of water in the city water system
let along thousands of other applications

Ions, charge and electricity via holes and water pressure...very cool.

Dang! This is the second post in a week where I have met the professors working on the research. My dad actually works in the same department as these guys, although my dad isn't a professor. Professor Kwok doesn't actually work at the university of alberta, anymore, though, but he did when this came out, which was at least a year or two ago, as it was while I was still in my undergraduate program.

It was a really big deal when first published, although from reports I saw on my school website at the time this broke news, the two professors don't really expect this to be very practical, at least not in its current form. Dr. Kostiuk did mention once somewhere that I saw, that he thought maybe this invention could be used in cellphones, but he didn't seem too enthusiastic about the possibilities.

Oh, and, incidentally, that link didn't work for me. I'm just commenting mostly from what I actually remember, when I was a student at the same school, and the quoted portion.

Umm, 'scuse me but... ?

Didn't they just invent one of those things ?

Didn't they call it a hydroelectric dam ?


[edit on 10-6-2007 by sy.gunson]

Click here for the link

Just replied to make a link to it that works...

Umm, 'scuse me but... ?

Didn't they just invent one of those things ?

Didn't they call it a hydroelectric dam ?

nope...

The hydroelectric dam has been around for quite some time , they use turbines to convert the flow of water into electricity. This process uses filters to create: " a thin liquid layer with a net charge, called the Electric Double Layer"

As mentioned in the article there are some obvious instances where this might be implemented where turbines would not be. Such as with filters that are being used to purify water....

[edit on 10-6-2007 by Heckman]

Originally posted by junglelord
imagine making electricity via the running of water in the city water system
let along thousands of other applications

Ions, charge and electricity via holes and water pressure...very cool.

It sounds nice but making electricity with the city water system will be a net loss - you won't get more out of this than it took to run the pumps, minus the frictional losses in the pipes.

This is one of those things that's somewhat interesting but not practical, it would only be of use if you were running a naturally occurring head of water through it, but with the tiny channels, you'd have to have amazingly good filtration. It will end up being more efficient to use a traditional turbine of some sort.

While this might not put the Arabs out of buisness, using water to create enough electricity to run small appliances would be a boon, I think.

Cell phones, alarm clocks, flashlights, remote controls, toys, cameras, optical mice and other things that seem to run out of juice at inopportune times would be prime candidates for such technology, if it could be made cheaply enough.

You never know where simple ideas might lead.

Fifty years ago, computers weren't very practical, either.

[edit on 2007/6/10 by GradyPhilpott]

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam

Originally posted by junglelord
imagine making electricity via the running of water in the city water system
let along thousands of other applications

Ions, charge and electricity via holes and water pressure...very cool.

It sounds nice but making electricity with the city water system will be a net loss - you won't get more out of this than it took to run the pumps, minus the frictional losses in the pipes.

This is one of those things that's somewhat interesting but not practical, it would only be of use if you were running a naturally occurring head of water through it, but with the tiny channels, you'd have to have amazingly good filtration. It will end up being more efficient to use a traditional turbine of some sort.

thats not necessarily so, it depends on weather the natural pressure available at the tap is enough pressure to make the ions.
If the need for high pressure output is not essential, then the natural movement of the water would pay off, even if it does come out slow


[edit on 10-6-2007 by junglelord]

I was thinking more in terms of use in places where city water is pumped from underground into elevated reservoirs during times of low consumption (night time) and then during times of high consumption (daytime) the water flows from the reservoirs to homes and businesses. (In which case the water must pass through filters anyway) Thus a method for storing energy for use during times of high electric power consumption while simultaneously using the physical resources (the pumps , reservoirs , filters and water) for city water supply. In which case the water must flow through restrictive filters anyway so it would depend on the efficiency of the process as to whether or not having a turbine in the mix would be more or less efficient.

[Edit]:
The same could hold true for Underground pumped hydroelectric energy storage systems where the water must be filtered of contaminants before being redistributed back into the water table. techexplorer.cusys.edu...


I dont really see how it could be used to effectively power cell phones or calculators as stated in the article, well at least not conveniently... **(images of hooking the cell phone and calculator up to the shower nozzle while bathing)**

Perhaps just the statement of an eager journalist?

[edit on 11-6-2007 by Heckman]

A unit of electrical charge is called a Coulomb.
One Coulomb (symbol Q) is 6·2 x 10^18 electrons.
The rate of flow of electrical charge is measured in amps (A).
One amp is one Coulomb per second. Q = I x t.

as you can see its not very practical even if they could get a million electrons per channel. 620000000000 channels would be required to produce one amp.

[edit on 10-6-2007 by jprophet420]

I don't think you guys realize just how small those channels are. This technology will only ever power extremely small objects. Building this tech on a scale to compare with hydroelectric dams is downright impossible. Each channel produces only a tiny amount of current, and the channels, being so small, are very difficult to manufacture. It just isn't going to happen. The article is incorrect when it says this could be used for power stations. The writer knows nothing of science if he/she says that.

Originally posted by junglelord

thats not necessarily so, it depends on weather the natural pressure available at the tap is enough pressure to make the ions.
If the need for high pressure output is not essential, then the natural movement of the water would pay off, even if it does come out slow

No, it will be true, because if you could get more power out of your water system than it took to run the pumps, you'd have made a perpetual motion machine.

This is interesting but it just doesn't make a lot of power.

lol, the intention wasn't to create perpetual motion, nor was it to be a feasible means of powering your home... it was just a new scientific principal that they wanted to explore. Thats all. They aren't businessmen, they're scientists.

Anyhow. Outside of that, now from the engineering column, I feel that if we can get it to work efficiently enough, instead of running both an electrical line, AND a water line to a point on the map, you may be able to just run the water line, and whatever net loss is experienced at the pumps end, you simply bill for in electricity. It would save having a bunch of overhead power lines (and yes, there are many places around the world which do not allow you to bury power lines).

But the question "What is it good for?" is to be addressed later... right now all we care about is "How does it work?"