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Posted by: Dwight Apr 23 2009, 04:47 AM

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/04/understanding-how-water-and-nanotubes-generate-energy.ars

Posted by: AllTheNothing Apr 23 2009, 12:59 PM

Cool, maybe even better that the biological fuel cell that poped up sometimes ago.

Posted by: Neraph Apr 24 2009, 05:18 AM

I just heard about one that uses the skin's electrical field for energy. They're evidently creating small wireless projector tubes that'll be able to be used as nanotattoos. I'll see if I can find the link.

Posted by: nezumi Apr 24 2009, 03:20 PM

This is on an absolutely tiny scale. It would not be sufficient to power things like a cyberarm, only enough for things like nanotechnology.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 24 2009, 04:41 PM

Depends somewhat on how well it scales up. However that said, besides nanoware, cyberware itself uses nanotechnology. This power source wouldn't be in the ballpark for sufficient power for functions like moving limbs, that takes a serious amount of power. A level that is problematic for even the previously mentioned synthetic biological sources, due to the math of how to get that many calories into your system. However for more sensor and light duty computational based cyberware it might be sufficient.

Posted by: nezumi Apr 24 2009, 05:27 PM

It doesn't scale up - likt eha rticle says, it's limited to nano-tubes. You perhaps, maybe, could get it a little larger by using an element or molecule larger than carbon. I don't know, I'm not a chemist. But it's still a looong way to go.

However, you're correct, we could argue it sufficient for more passive systems, such as cyber-eyes.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 24 2009, 05:43 PM

The battery in a car is based on chemistry that only provides a 2.1V potential. However it is a "12V" battery. It does this by hooking a number of them is series. It scaled up the basic physical chemistry effect by configuring a number of them to work together.

EDIT: Of course there is the matter of how to get the energy to drive the water through the tube. I wonder if sweating might be the way to do this in a body.

Posted by: AllTheNothing Apr 24 2009, 06:16 PM

This technology (if we can call it that) seems to convert part of the kinetic energy of the water molecules into electricity, it could take advantage of the bloodstream but it could cause problems if used for producing alot of energy, however it could be very usefull for applications that require very low power and voltage, neural interfaces come to my mind as the best candidate to make use of this technology (cyberlimbs can simply have energy storages into them and a jack for an external charger).

Posted by: darthmord Apr 24 2009, 06:55 PM

It's really exploiting natural forces (in this case, the inherent nature of the oxygen and hydrogen atoms).

The future of power generation will require that we do such things rather than rely on fossil fuels. I just hope it happens sooner than later. There are some really strange things one can accomplish with magnets that exploit the natural resting state of their fields.

Posted by: Dwight Apr 24 2009, 07:18 PM

It isn't that yet. Technology would the [useful] harnessing of this phenomena.

I was thinking about using the hydraulic energy in the bloodstream but messing about with lowering the energy in blood flow doesn't seem like a very good idea. Unless you altered the arteries from the heart to where you tapped off the extra energy so that the net result was normal blood flow.

I like the idea of using evaporation because you are tapping "waste" energy.

Posted by: AllTheNothing Apr 24 2009, 09:40 PM

Which would be the kinetic energy of the fluid.



This would be an actualy very good application.