What if it were possible to create energy out of air? A purely sustainable and renewable source of energy that wouldn’t require towers or panels. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have developed just that. It turns out that air humidity is a vast, sustainable reservoir of energy that is continuously available. The researchers claim that just about any surface can be turned into a generator by replicating the electrical properties of storm clouds. A storm cloud is a mass of water droplets, all of which contain a charge. When the conditions are right, the cloud can produce a lightning bolt. The researchers have used similar properties to build a small-scale cloud that can produce electricity predictably and continuously.
So how does it work? Their air generator (Air-gen) relies on microscopic holes smaller than 100 nanometres (even more minuscule than a strand of a human hair). The small diameter of these holes is called a “mean free path”, which is the distance a single molecule can travel before it collides with another molecule of the same substance.
Water molecules float all around the air, and their mean free path is around 100 nanometres. As the humid air passes through Air-gen’s minuscule holes, the water molecules will directly contact an upper and lower chamber in the film. Because each pore is so small, the water molecules would easily bump into the pore’s edge as they pass through the thin layer. This interaction creates a charge imbalance and results in electricity.
The researchers claim that their product could offer kilowatts of power for general usage as long as there is any humidity in the air. Their Air-gen device could be more space efficient and blend into the environment compared to other renewable energy options such as solar and wind power. Moreover, humidity exists at all hours of the day and night, rain or shine, to provide non-stop energy.
The researchers also claim that harvesting the air and water droplets could be designed from all kinds of materials, which offers many opportunities for cost-effective and environment-adaptable designs. The Air-gen device is so small that thousands of them could be stacked on top of each other, increasing the amount of energy it gives off without increasing the environmental footprint of the device.
This device stems from the researcher’s previous inventions of generating an electric current using moisture in the air using a microbe called Geobacter. Their device produced a sustained voltage of about 0.5 volts for about 20 hours and could light up small LED bulbs. However, they couldn’t get the microbe to create enough nanowires (the small holes that generate the electric charge) to scale up the technology further.
Their new Air-gen device has never been discovered before, and it opens up many possibilities for effectively using renewable resources to create energy. It’s incredible to think we could harvest energy from the air around us. This discovery and invention could be scaled up. They could make renewable energy more accessible to people around the world. They could reduce the negative environmental impact we see with some existing forms of renewable energy (solar panels or wind turbines).
In a year beset with environmental and social problems made worse by a pandemic that refused to go away, scientists, engineers and other types of clever people found solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.
From lab-grown furniture to net-zero alcohol, Eco-Business highlights the sustainability innovations that gave humanity a bit of hope in another troubling year.
Milk pants
Underwear made from waste milk doesn’t sound particularly hygienic. But United States-based sustainable fabric brand Inner Mettle claims to be able upcycle underwear from surplus milk. The underwear is natural, breathable and super-soft, according to the manufacturer, which also makes shoes from recycled lycra and vegan suede.
Inner Mettle’s milk pants, made from waste milk. Image: Inner Mettle
Lab-grown furniture
Loggers take note. Furniture could soon be produced in a laboratory. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) boffins say they can rear in a lab what would take decades to grow in nature. They could even engineer the wood tissue to grow into the specific shape of the chair or table. “Trees grow in tall cylindrical poles, and we rarely use tall cylindrical poles in industrial applications,” Luis Fernando Velásquez-García, a principal scientist in MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories, told Fast Company about his research paper, published in Journal for Cleaner Production. “So you end up shaving off a bunch of material that you spent 20 years growing and that ends up being a waste product.” Though the research is still in its infancy, MIT’s researcher say this could be the beginning of a new way of producing biomaterials that could also help to replace single-use plastics.
Net-zero booze
Producing a single bottle of vodka emits an average of 6 kilogrammes of carbon, according to New York-based carbon-neutral alcoholic spirits startup Air Company. The company produces carbon-negative vodka, making their alcohol from recaptured CO2 and takes an extra 45 grammes of carbon from the air in the process. Air Company’s carbon-neutral booze clinched a prize at Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Awards this year.
Surfing to save the ocean
A surfboard that measures water acidity, temperature and wave movements could be used to find out more about the declining health of the ocean. “The reason these parameters are important is because they’re changing directly as a result of climate change,” says Dr Andrew Stern, founder of Smartfin, in a video interview with Great Big Story. “We have detailed information about the deep ocean, but very limited accurate information about the near shore.” Data is collected from an implant in the surfboard’s fin and sent the user’s phone for analysis.
Tyler Cyronak, post-doctoral fellow at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Image: YouTube
Coffee capsules that die
The sort of invention that should have been invented ages ago and before disposable coffee capsules made from aluminium and plastic began lining landfills: coffee capsules that actually breakdown in the environment. The Nexe Pod, developed by plant-based materials design firm Nexe Innovations, is for people who want to drink half-decent coffee instantly, without worrying as much about the packaging footprint of such convenience (because they’re already worrying about the deforestation footprint of the coffee). Nexe Pods are plant-based, compostable in just over a month, non-toxic in soils and and can apparently fit more coffee than a standard single-serve Nespresso capsule. “We arechasing the compostability side of the market,” said Nexe Innovations president Ash Guglani in an interview with Proactive in May. “There’s a lot of recyclable alternatives out there. But recycling requires work. We’re bringing convenience back to single-serve.”
Skateboard wheels made of recycled chewing gum. Design students Hugo Maupetit and Vivian Fischer, from Nancy in France, found a way to collect discarded chewing gum, encouraging people to stick their used gum on a sign board rather than drop it on the floor. Once 10-30 used gums had been collected, they were melted down and moulded into wheels.
Early versions of chewing gum were made from tree sap, but most modern gum is made from the same stuff as car tyres, a synthetic rubber called polyisobutylene. Image: Dezeen
Batteries from trees
The material most often used for the anode in lithium-ion batteries is synthetic graphite, which is non-renewable. Finish pulp and paper manufacturer Stora Enso says it can replace synthetic graphite with lignin, the sturdy stuff found in the cells and bark of trees, for use in the batteries found in electric vehicles, mobile phones and laptops.
Homes from shipping containers
There’s a growing surplus of shipping containers that have reached the end of their lives. German architects and developers the Schween family teamed up with real estate expert Sean Woolley tocreate aesthetically pleasing and affordable homes made from used containers in Marbella, Spain.
A home made from used shipping containers. Image: Sean Woolley
Eau d’Industrie
German chemicals giant BASF has found a way to create the fragrance found in perfume and the flavours found in food from industrial waste. Called n-octanol, the stuff, which is made from a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, is sourced from steel industry waste. Using this technology, companies will be able to make any product containing n-octanol from municipal and industrial waste gases, replacing fossil fuels in the production process and also preventing them from getting into the atmosphere.
Waterless beauty
Freeze-drying used to be a popular technique for preserving food for astronauts. Now beauty brands such as Korean brand Saro de Rúe and Beijing-based biotech company Weibo Hi-Tech Cosmetics are using the method for skincare products. Freeze-drying helps the product last longer, as there is no water for bacteria to multiply on, so no need for preservatives, and the product’s ingredients can be transported in vacuum-sealed bags rather than liquid containers, saving on space. If there is a drawback, they still use plastic packaging.
The city of Barcelona is on a mission to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. To help it do this, it has starting laying solar panels on pathways. The first installation is 50 square metres of photovoltaic panels in a park in the Glòries district. The path will generate 7,560 kWh a year, enough to supply three households. “We’ll have to assess the wear and tear because obviously it’s not the same as putting panels on a roof, although they are highly resistant,” Eloi Badia, who is responsible for climate emergency and ecological transition at Barcelona city council, told The Guardian newspaper.
PV pavement. Image: Ayuntamiento de Barcelona
Washing with waste
Personal care giant Unilever teamed up with biotech company LanzaTech and green chemical company India Glycols to manufacture laundry capsules made from recycled carbon emissions. Launched in China in April, the capsules are made from recaptured industrial emissions which are repurposed into surfactants, a product normally made using fossil fuels.
OMO capsules, made from industrial waste. Image: Unilever
Electric steps
Footsteps can be converted into enough electricity to power LED lightbulbs or other small appliances, by attaching an energy-harvesting device to wooden flooring. Called a nanogenerator, the device is based on sandwiching two pieces of wood between electrodes.
Vegan diamonds
Diamonds are typically dug up or produced in labs. Both methods are environmentally-intensive. US firm Aether claims to make the world’s first diamonds that “help reverse the historical damage done to ecosystems and the environment by the diamond industry.” The company’s atmospheric collectors suck carbon dioxide from the sky, pulling it into specialised filters. The CO2 is then synthesised into the right hydrocarbon for growing diamonds. The raw materials are placed into powerful reactors for the diamonds to be grown. The energy used comes from “renewable and low-emissions sources”, the company told Forbes. The product is now vegan certified.
