SCIENTIST NOW GENERATING RENEWABLE ENERGY WITH FALLING RAIN

When it comes to renewable energy, solar power is an amazing solution—until it starts to rain. By creating a device that uses rainwater to generate electricity, a group of researchers from the National University of Singapore hopes to change that. How precisely such an invention can be achieved is demonstrated by a recent study that was published in ACS Central Science.

The research team used charge separation—a physical phenomenon in which oppositely charged particles separate and eventually produce a voltage between one another—for their studies. A device that sifts water through microscopic tubes made of an electrically conductive polymer was created by scientists to optimise this effect, which is otherwise very inefficient, if not insignificant.

According to a statement from Siowling Soh, one of the study's authors, "water that falls through a vertical tube creates a large quantity of electricity by using a precise pattern of water flow and plug flow."

A crucial component of the device's electricity-generating mechanism was "plug flow," in which water flowed in tiny columns divided by air spaces as opposed to in constant floods. While warning that the current system would be best suited for smaller and slower volumes of water, Soh stated, "This plug flow pattern could allow rain energy to be gathered for creating clean and sustainable electricity." 

Wires attached to the top of the tube and the bottom of the cup captured the electricity, while steel cups underneath the device's tubes collected charged droplets. Twelve LED light bulbs could be powered by this "plug flow" system, but it could only keep up for roughly 20 seconds. Nevertheless, the researchers emphasised the benefits of plug flow, emphasising how easily and affordably it can be "scaled up" for "large-scale harvesting," whether in rural or urban settings.