A team of scientists discovered how to generate an electric current using moisture in the air by a strange microbe.
The air-powered generator operates when water interacts in the air with conducting microscopic strands produced by a microbe that produces an electrical charge. Technology is still in its infancy, but it has the potential to be a source of sustainable energy for electronics.
The researchers, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, named their "Air-gen" in an article published in the journal Nature on Monday.
"Air-Jin generates clean energy around the clock, seven days a week," electrical engineer John Yao said in a press release. "It is the most exciting application in the protein nanoparticle technology so far."
The nanowires are very small strands of protein, with a diameter of about a billionth of a meter and can carry an electrical charge.
Geobacter produced it, and scientists put a layer of nanowires through a pole of gold with an area of about 25 mm2, and then put another gold electrode on top of that to create something like a nanowire sandwich.
"What happens is that the nanowire film absorbs moisture from the air and divides it, and with it an electric charge is generated," said Derek Lovley, one of the researchers involved in the research and the first to isolate a microbe microbe. "The film's surface also appears to release a charge from the water molecule. So, in this way, you can have continuous energy production."
The device produces - according to the study - a constant voltage of about 0.5 volts for about twenty hours before "self-recharge" so that scientists used small squares to illuminate small "LED" lamps.
However, there was a problem, they couldn't get the microbe to produce enough nanowires to further develop the technology. "We had a limited amount of wire," Lovley said.
The team realized that they could force a different microbe to produce nanowires on an industrial scale, the E. coli microbe.
Ultimately, Lovley said he hoped the ability to generate electricity from the air using nanoparticle wires would be as the world was searching for the will and means to stop fossil fuels before it was too late.
"We created a climate crisis with our hands, but now there is this wonderful discovery. To come up with a new alternative. We are very fortunate that there is something exciting to work on," he said.
Now, scientists are working to upgrade technology to save more energy. The two current ideas are a small piece of nanowire to power wearable devices like a smart watch and a thin bundle attached to the phone to eliminate the need for a charger.
The ultimate goal is to make large-scale systems. For example, technology may be incorporated into wall paint that can help power your home. "Once we reach the industrial scale of wire production, I fully expect that we can produce large systems that contribute significantly to sustainable energy production," Yao said in a press release.