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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 31 2019, @04:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the seawater-is-more-than-just-salty-water dept.

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


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 01 2019, @10:28PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 01 2019, @10:28PM (#874317)

    hehehe, lol. now i get it "watt per hour" translated is "w/h" but watt-hour is "w*h".
    i am sure the writer has stumbled upon something on the internet often enough to know that watt or even kilo watt is not energy.
    so for good measure threw in hours too ...

  • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday August 01 2019, @11:36PM (3 children)

    by RS3 (6367) on Thursday August 01 2019, @11:36PM (#874356)

    Yes, thank you. It's a matter of English, terminology, plainspeak, etc. The word "per" does NOT exclusively mean "divide by", but some ACs here have limited brain cells, and they're way overly proud of the few they have that work, so that's all they can handle.

    Fortunately, as an engineer, one of my jobs, which makes me pretty good, is to understand and interpret "plainspeak". If everything I designed, configured, etc., was spelled out for me, I would not be functioning as an engineer, but more as an assembler / technician. And sometimes we have to spend quite a bit of time with customers, process engineers, sales / marketing people, etc., to understand what they really want, and make sure they understand what we believe is the correct design / process to give them the working design. And when we run into people like many (most?) of the other ACs here, we do everything we can do bypass them.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @03:37AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 04 2019, @03:37AM (#875367)

      Please give an example, in a natural sentence, of using the word "per" where it does NOT mean "divided by".

      • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Sunday August 04 2019, @03:51AM (1 child)

        by RS3 (6367) on Sunday August 04 2019, @03:51AM (#875370)

        "I built the bicycle per the instructions". I guess I could say "I built the bicycle divided by the instructions", but it wouldn't make sense.

        "Per" is a prepostion, one definition (you can look it up too) is: "by means of".

        How about "take one pill per day". Would you say "take one pill divided by day"? Doesn't make sense, does it?

        Is that enough to convince you, or do you expect me to google some more?

        I don't understand the pedantry here. I need to consult a social psychologist. I've come into boards like this fairly late in the game and some things baffle me. Why all the flame wars and downmodding? It's sad how this could have been a great website.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @03:08PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2019, @03:08PM (#876003)

          For perspective, plates having an area of 10 square meters each would generate a few kilowatts per hour—enough for a standard US home
          For perspective, plates having an area of 10 square meters each would generate a few kilowatts by means of hour—enough for a standard US home
          Doesn't really work in that context does it?

          Maybe you meant the meaning "each"
          For perspective, plates having an area of 10 square meters each would generate a few kilowatts each hour—enough for a standard US home
          Nope. Although given your apparent disregard of units you probably think that's fine.