We can’t keep burning coal for power if we want to have a world we can still live in, so renewable energy becomes very important.
Scientists at UCLA took another step in the right direction recently, with a generator powered by falling snow of all things.
Snow is positively charged when it falls, so the researchers rigged up what they call a snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator. This device consists of a negatively charged plate that captures the electrons and, when the two charges meet, static electricity is formed.
“After testing a large number of materials, including aluminum foils and Teflon, we found that silicone produces more charge than any other material,” said co-author Maher El-Kady. Luckily for them, because of how easy and cheap it is to obtain silicone, that means the device is really cheap to build. The machine also serves as a weather station, able to give accurate readings on wind and rain.
Source: indiatimes
