![]() Co-author Thomas Miller, professor of chemistry at Caltech, led a team that conducted atomistic simulations to study the device’s behavior at the atomic level. Geiger is the study’s corresponding author his Northwestern team conducted the experiments. The study, titled “ Energy Conversion via Metal Nanolayers,” was published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Given how transparent the films are, it’s exciting to think about coupling the metal nanolayers to a solar cell or coating the outside of building windows with metal nanolayers to obtain energy when it rains.” “Foldable designs that fit, for instance, into a backpack are a possibility as well. “The ease of scaling up the metal nanolayer to large areas and the ease with which plastics can be coated gets us to three-dimensional structures where large volumes of liquids can be used,” Geiger said. Developments in this area could lead to use in stents and other implantable devices. The researchers intend to study the method using other ionic liquids, including blood. The films are transparent, a feature that could be taken advantage of in solar cells. ![]() “Instead of corrosion, the presence of the oxides on the right metals leads to a mechanism that shuttles electrons.” Geiger, the Dow Professor of Chemistry in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. “It’s the oxide layer over the nanometal that really makes this device go,” said Franz M. The difference in salinity drags the electrons along in the metal below. Current is generated when pulses of rainwater and ocean water alternate and move across the nanolayers. The films have a conducting metal nanolayer (10 to 20 nanometers thick) that is insulated with an oxide layer (2 nanometers thick). These films represent an entirely new way of generating electricity and could be used to develop new forms of sustainable power production. ![]() Scientists from Northwestern University and Caltech have produced electricity by simply flowing water over extremely thin layers of inexpensive metals, including iron, that have oxidized. ![]()
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