Harvesting Electricity Out of Thin Air
Science for the Public: Contemporary Science Issues & Innovations
October 24, 2023 Belmont Media Center (zoom recording)
Jun Yao, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering; and Adjunct, Biomedical Engineering, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
The air contains an enormous amount of electricity.Clouds are full of it.But how to actually capture it for a continuous energy resource?Dr. Jun Yao and his colleagues at UMass-Amherst have created a small-scale cloud they call the “generic Air-gen effect” that produces a reliable stream of electricity that can be harvested for general use.In this interview, Dr. Yao describes how the Air-gen innovation was developed, how the electricity is harvested from the air via a special material made of protein nanowires, and when the device can be scaled up for general use.
Articles about this the Air-Gen innovation
Scientists find way to make energy from air using nearly any material
Clean Energy 24/7: Engineers Use Nanotechnology To Harvest Electricity “From Thin Air”