This New Method Can Generate Enough Energy To Power 100 LED Lights From One Drop Of Rain

The water cycle could probably be another way to create renewable energy as scientists have recently made a breakthrough in extracting a significant amount of electricity out of water droplets.

If you are imagining an umbrella that can double as a generator, the bad news is, we have not reached that stage yet. But new research has found a way to generate enough power for 100 LED bulbs with one single droplet.

According to Wang Zuankai, a biomedical engineer from the City University of Hong Kong, a droplet of 100 microliters of water falling from a height of 15 cm can provide around 140V voltage, which can light up an equivalent of 100 LED lights.

This might sound too good to be true, given the size of a single droplet, but the scientists have to use a neat trick to get that much power.

This breakthrough is the outcome of years of research, as harvesting energy from rain is much more challenging than doing so with tides or a flowing stream.

What the scientists used is PTFE film, which can accumulate surface charge, which created repeatedly by raindrops, until saturation is reached.

The idea behind this invention is that when a water droplet hits a surface, it acts as a bridge to connect two electrodes, an indium tin oxide and an aluminum electrode, with the PTFE film on top.

After that, the droplet also helps create a closed-loop so that the energy can be released. The highlight of this method is that it can be used with any hard surface, like an umbrella for example.

While the road ahead is still rough, the researchers hope that we will have the first prototype ready to be tested in the next five years.

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