There are many ways to generate electricity—batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and hydroelectric dams, to name a few examples... and now, there's rust.
New research conducted by scientists at Caltech and Northwestern University shows that thin films of rust—iron oxide—can generate electricity when saltwater flows over them. These films represent an entirely new way of generating electricity and could be used to develop new forms of sustainable power production.
Interactions between metal compounds and saltwater often generate electricity, but this is usually the result of a chemical reaction in which one or more compounds are converted to new compounds. Reactions like these are what is at work inside batteries.
In contrast, the phenomenon discovered by Tom Miller, Caltech professor of chemistry, and Franz Geiger, Dow Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern, does not involve chemical reactions, but rather converts the kinetic energy of flowing saltwater into electricity.
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-ultra-thin-layers-rust-electricity.html
More information: Mavis D. Boamah et al. Energy conversion via metal nanolayers, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2019). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1906601116
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday August 01 2019, @03:23AM (2 children)
Either you misread, or they've fixed it - the article now reads kilowatt-hours
(Score: 2) by progo on Sunday August 04 2019, @10:52PM (1 child)
Very nice. A few kilowatt-hours per WHAT? Per day? Per year? A few kilowatt-hours before the system disintegrates tomorrow?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday August 06 2019, @02:29AM
Presumably, per hour. I discussed the issue at some length in another reply