The snowy regions of the planet are not suitable for the use of solar panels. It is difficult for the panels to generate any energy if they are buried under a blanket of snow. So a team at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has developed a new device that can generate electricity from the snow itself.
The team calls the new device a snow-triboelectric nanogenerator, or Snow TENG (snow-based triboelectric nanogenerator). As the name suggests, it works by , that is, it uses static electricity to generate charge through the exchange of electrons between positively and negatively charged materials. Devices of this type are used to create low-power generators that receive energy from body movements, touches on a touch screen, and even human steps on the floor.
Snow is positively charged, so when it rubs against a material with the opposite charge, energy can be extracted from it. After a series of experiments, the research team found that silicone is the best material for the triboelectric effect when interacting with snow.
Snow TENG can be 3D printed using a layer of silicone attached to an electrode. The developers say it can be integrated into solar panels so they can continue to generate electricity even when covered in snow, making it look like last March by Chinese scientists, a hybrid solar cell, which also uses the triboelectric effect to generate energy from the collision of raindrops with the surface of solar panels.
The problem is that Snow TENG generates a fairly small amount of electricity in its current form - its power density is 0,2 mW per square meter. This means that you are unlikely to connect it directly to the house power grid, like a solar panel itself, but nevertheless it can be used, for example, for small and self-contained weather sensors.
“The Snow TENG-based weather sensor can work in remote areas, as it provides its own power and does not require other sources,” says Richard Kaner, senior author of the study. “This very smart device is a weather station that can tell you how much snow is falling at the moment, the direction of snowfall, and the direction and speed of the wind.”
The researchers cite another use case for Snow TENG, such as a sensor that can be attached to the bottom of boots or skis and used to collect data for winter sports.
The study was published in the journal .
Source: 3dnews.ru