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Generating small amounts of electricity by squeezing luffa sponges

Posted on October 3, 2023October 3, 2023 by dishanth

A team of mechanical engineers at Beihang University, Peking University and the University of Houston has found that it is possible to capture small amounts of electricity by repeatedly squeezing treated luffa sponges. In their study, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group treated sample luffa sponges and measured the electricity they generated when repeatedly squeezed.

Prior research has shown that applying force or stress to certain materials can result in an accumulation of a piezoelectric charge. Prior research has also shown that repeatedly applying and releasing the force or stress can result in the production of a flow of piezoelectricity.

Over the past several years, engineers have investigated the possibility of generating small amounts of piezoelectricity by taking advantage of footsteps, for example, or the movement of clothes as a person walks. Electricity generated and collected in such ways is seen as a possible way to charge personal devices. In this new effort, the research team looked into use of a new kind of material to generate piezoelectricity—luffa sponges.

Luffa sponges are porous shells that are left behind when the fruit of a luffa plant is left to dry. They have been prepared and sold as a commercial product, mainly as a tool for removing dead skin from the body while in the shower. In this new effort, the researchers looked at luffa as a possible tool for generating small amounts of electricity.

They first treated them with chemicals to remove hemicellulose and lignin, leaving behind a cellulose crystal shell. Then, they connected the results to an electrical circuit and began squeezing them over and over by hand. The research team found they were able to generate up to 8 nanoamps of electricity.

They acknowledge that the amount of electricity generated is so small that it likely would not be of much use, but they also suggest that artificially created luffa sponges could be created that would be more efficient. They could also be made a lot bigger to generate useable amounts of electricity.

Source Tech Xplore

Air Conditioning in a Camping Tent – Just Add Water

Posted on March 22, 2023March 22, 2023 by dishanth

The fabrics currently used to make tents are engineered to block out winds and water to help keep their inhabitants dry and comfortable, but they tend to work both ways, preventing hot air from escaping from the tent. The tent can feel sweltering, even with plenty of ventilation.

You can always pack a portable air conditioner to drop the temperature inside your tent, but those require an ingredient that is often in short supply at rural campsites: electricity. Running a portable AC unit or even a simple fan on a solar panel for an extended period is impossible, and you do not want to carry batteries in your backpack.

Al Kasani, a researcher at the University of Connecticut’s Center For Clean Energy Engineering, drew inspiration from the way plants wick water from the ground and then sweat to cool themselves. Subsequently, he designed a self-cooling tent fabric that retains its thin and lightweight nature; with an added twist – it is fortified with titanium nanoparticles that absorb moisture from reservoirs at the base of the tent. This releases water across its surface, rapidly evaporating, resulting in a cooling effect that reduces internal temperature by up to 20 degrees.

Using either water sourced from a faucet at a campsite or water drawn from a stream in a rural setting, Kasani estimates that a gallon of water can keep a tent cool for up to 24 hours. You don’t need purified, clean water, evaporative cooling works with any water.

This upgraded fabric won’t be available in camping gear for a while—the material is still in the research phase—but according to the university, “industry interest has been high in Kasani’s technology.”

It will be interesting to see this type of product enter the mainstream. Any success with a passive cooling system like this will have spinoffs that can help in other ways. Suppose you can cool a camping tent by 20 degrees. In that case, you could also provide cooling shelters to protect vulnerable people living on the streets without access to air conditioning. A similar protection could be created for refugees or hospitals in hotter regions. Advances in technology might even find a way to use it to cool traditional buildings and reduce energy costs in warehouses. The potential is almost endless.

Source Happy Eco News

Renewable energy has ‘another record year of growth’ says IEA

Posted on December 2, 2021 by dishanth

It has been another record year for renewable energy, despite the Covid-19 pandemic and rising costs for raw materials around the world, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

About 290GW of new renewable energy generation capacity, mostly in the form of wind turbines and solar panels, has been installed around the world this year, beating the previous record last year. On current trends, renewable energy generating capacity will exceed that of fossil fuels and nuclear energy combined by 2026.

New climate and energy policies in many countries around the world have driven the growth, with many governments setting out higher ambitions on cutting greenhouse gas emissions before and at the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow last month.

However, this level of growth is still only about half that required to meet net zero carbon emissions by mid-century.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said: “This year’s record renewable energy additions are yet another sign that a new global energy economy is emerging. The high commodity and energy prices we are seeing today pose new challenges for the renewable industry, but elevated fossil fuel prices also make renewables even more competitive.”

According to the IEA report, published on Wednesday, renewables will account for about 95% of the increase in global power-generation capacity from now to the end of 2026, with solar power alone providing about half of the increase.

Raw material prices have risen as the world has emerged from the Covid pandemic and on the back of the energy price rises around the world. These price increases have cancelled out some of the cost falls of recent years in the renewable sector. If they continue next year the cost of wind power will return to levels last seen in 2015, and two to three years of cost falls in solar power will be wiped out.

Heymi Bahar, lead author of the report, said that commodity prices were not the main obstacles to growth, however. Wind and solar would still be cheaper than fossil fuels in most areas, he noted. Permitting was the main barrier to new wind energy projects around the world, and policy measures were needed to expand use of solar power for consumers and industry.

“We need a gear change to meet net zero,” he said. “We have already seen a very important gear change in recent years but we need to move up another gear now. It is possible, we have the tools. Governments need to show more ambition, not just on targets but on policy measures and plans.”

China installed the most new renewable energy capacity this year, and is now expected to reach 1,200GW of wind and solar capacity in 2026, four years earlier than its target of 2030. China is the world’s biggest carbon emitter, but the government was reluctant at Cop26 to commit to the strengthening of its emissions-cutting targets, which many observers had hoped for.

China is targeting a peak in emissions by 2030, which many analysts say is much too late if the world is to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the Paris agreement target that was the focus of the Cop26 talks.

Birol said China’s rapid expansion of renewable energy suggested the country could reach an emissions peak “well before 2030”.

India, the world’s third-biggest emitter, also experienced strong growth in renewable energy capacity in the past year, but its target – set out at Cop26 – of reaching net zero by 2070 is also regarded as too weak by many. Birol said: “The growth of renewables in India is outstanding, supporting the government’s newly announced goal of reaching 500GW of renewable power capacity by 2030 and highlighting India’s broader potential to accelerate its clean energy transition.”

Source The Guardian