Wednesday, October 22, 2003
Edmonton researchers discover new way of generating electricity
EDMONTON (CP) - A University of Alberta research team says it has discovered a clean way of generating electricity by simply directing water at a solid surface.
The discovery is chronicled in a research paper to be published Monday by the London-based Institute of Physics. It has a wide range of possible uses - from powering small devices such as Palm Pilots or calculators with water batteries, to maybe someday contributing electricity from a clean, renewable source to a national power grid, says the university.
"The discovery of an entirely new way of producing power is an incredible, fundamental research breakthrough that occurs only once in a lifetime," said David Lynch, dean of the university's engineering faculty.
With the help of two graduate students, engineering professors Daniel Kwok and Larry Kostiuk were able to light a small bulb by squeezing a syringe of ordinary tap water through a glass "filter" with microscopic-sized holes.
They did it by harnessing the natural energy that is created on a very tiny scale when a flowing liquid meets a solid surface.
It's been known for many decades that when a liquid such as water comes into contact with a non-conducting solid such as glass, ceramic or stone an interaction occurs between the two at a microscopic level that creates a charge on the surface, Kostiuk said.
Because of the movement of positive and negative ions, the solid becomes negatively charged and the water next to the surface positively charged.
Kwok was explaining if one puts the water through a "microchannel," - imagine a tiny tube - the positive and negatives ions move so that one end becomes positive and the other negative.
"I was walking on a cloud for the next day. I couldn't believe nobody else had really looked at this and done it before.
"The possibility just kept bouncing through my mind about how we would do this," said Kostiuk , adding Kwok shared his enthusiasm.
What continues to strike Kostiuk is the simplicity of their invention.
Using a syringe, they pressed water through their "filter," a two-centimetre glass disc with 450,000 holes in it - something commonly found in labs, he said. The holes act as the microchannels where the charge is created.
They attached metal electrodes at either end of their device and connected them using a wire to create a pathway for the current - and they had electricity.
"Embarrassingly, that's it," he said.
Theoretically, there's nothing to prevent it from being scaled up, Kostiuk said. To create electricity on a very large scale, you would have to have a large volume of water flowing through many million microchannels.
The university applied for a patent on their invention in August and is currently working with the inventors to find ways to commercialize the discovery.
Kwok said not only has he received correspondence from academics already offering suggestions for the research, it appears to have captured the public imagination as well - judging from the many congratulatory e-mails from individuals.
"Everybody knows about electricity and everybody knows about water. . . It really caught public attention because . . . nobody has been able to come up with a new method of generating electricity for the last 160 years."
Major electricity breakthroughs:
1800: Allesandro Volta discovers electrochemical effect, used in batteries.
1821: Thomas Seebeck discovers Seebeck effect, used in thermoelectric generators.
1831: Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction, used in electric generators.
1839: Edmond Becquerel discovers photovoltaic effect, used in solar cells.
1839: Sir William Grove discovers proton exchange membranes used in fuel cells.
2002: Larry Kostiuk and Daniel Kwok discover electrokinetic effect, could lead to pressurized water battery and other uses.
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