Energy from water vapor

[pags]

From MIT news:

MIT engineers have created a new polymer film that can generate electricity by drawing on a ubiquitous source: water vapor.

The new material changes its shape after absorbing tiny amounts of evaporated water, allowing it to repeatedly curl up and down. Harnessing this continuous motion could drive robotic limbs or generate enough electricity to power micro- and nanoelectronic devices, such as environmental sensors.

“With a sensor powered by a battery, you have to replace it periodically. If you have this device, you can harvest energy from the environment so you don't have to replace it very often,” says Mingming Ma, a postdoc at MIT’s David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and lead author of a paper describing the new material in the Jan. 11 issue of Science.

Complete article here.

[russell.eberhardt]

Funny, I've had a hygrometer for many years that works on a similar principle.

Russell

[menotu]

Interesting

[pags]

Funny, I've had a hygrometer for many years that works on a similar principle.

Russell

I'm guessing (guessing, I say... ), that the difference is in the amount of work that can be performed by the mechanism involved...for the hygrometer, it just has to be enough to register a difference to perform the measurement (usually over a "long" period of time)...

Still, I agree, the basic physically principles are likely similar, if not the same.