Electricity from water is nothing new. Despit5e one third of the Earth covered under water, much of this resource is not used for generating electric power that the world needs. When talking of hydropower, rain drops have also been found to generate power. A group of researchers from the City University of Hongkong have developed droplet based electric generator, which is said to be a revolution in energy generation and also that is going to help in tackling power crisis.
The researchers developed the droplet generator with a field effect transistor like structure. This droplet generator is said to have thousand time high energy conservation efficiency and power density than other systems. The researchers claimed that a voltage of over 140 V could be generated when a drop of water is dropped from a height of 15 cm.
The study has been published in Nature Journal. The method that the researchers developed is based on Triboelectric effect. Professor Wang Zuankai from the Department of Mechanical Engineering ( City University of Hongkong) led the team. The other prominent persons in the team were Profesor Zeng Xiao Cheng (University of Nebraska= Lincoln) and Professor Wang Zhong Lin (Beijing University of Nanoenergy and nanosystems of Chinese Academy).
It has been reported that they took almost two years to develop the new generator. Having a similar structure as that of FET, the device consists of aluminium electrode and Indium Tin Oxide electrode with a PTFE film deposition.
