Science and electricity from wet wood: New sources of energy under study

be born Electric starting from wet wood and use the energy collected fromEvaporation of water. This is the goal towards which a study was directed, described in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, by scientists from the Royal Institute of Technology, who devised a method of collecting electricity from wood immersed in water and left to dry. The team led Yuan Yuan Lee, Take advantage of the naturally occurring transpiration process when water evaporates from wet wood. During transpiration, experts explain, water moves through the material that produces small amounts of bioelectricity. researchers used Advanced nanoengineering skills to collect this electricity. “At the moment – he tells me – the technology allows us to make it work properly LED flashlight or calculator. for To power a laptop, we need a square meter of wood, one centimeter thick, and two liters of water. Supporting the electrical needs of the average household requires massive amounts of wood and water, so it’s a system that has yet to be tested and improved upon. By altering the nanostructure of the wood, the scientists improved the material’s properties, in terms of surface area, porosity, surface charge, and the speed at which water can pass through the wood. “Our approach,” Lee says, “allows us to obtain about ten times more quantity than ordinary wood. By regulating the pH difference between wood and water, a voltage of about 1.35 microwatts per square centimeter can be achieved. So far, wood has run ten cycles with water without showing any decrease in performance. The great advantage of this technology, Lee concludes, is that wood can easily be used for other purposes once it is used as an energy source. We hope to improve the process in order to improve its effectiveness and efficiency.”