An international team of scientists from China and Scotland has developed miniature generators that generate electricity by blowing wind and raindrops. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering (ASCECG).
The team created two different types of energy harvesters: a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) to capture kinetic energy from wind and a droplet energy generator (DEG) to harvest energy from precipitation impacts.
TENG consists of a layer of nylon nanofiber sandwiched between layers of Teflon and copper electrodes. Teflon and electrodes were also used in CGE production. When raindrops hit one of the electrodes, they created a current, causing an imbalance in the charges. Under optimum conditions, the TENG produced 252 volts and the CGE produced 113 volts, but only for short periods of time.
Scientists placed TENG and CGE in artificial plants and gave them the shape of leaves. The device managed to light 10 LED lamps. According to experts, the development can be scaled up and applied to larger systems to produce clean, renewable energy.
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