The energy source is "charged droplets" but what happens when they're used up?
Does the device create its own cloud of "used-up" un-charged droplets? How quickly do they become re-charged, and by what process? Or do the "used" droplets condense? Could this be used as a combined source of water and power?
Is the reason droplets become charged in the first place because of the Earth's magnetic field? Does it involve weird stuff in the interaction of space and the upper atmosphere, like solar wind / ionosphere / Van Allen belts / cosmic rays? If this is deployed on a worldwide scale, how worried should we be about depleting the magnetic field or stripping away Earth's natural radiation protection?
[Very skeptical of this. I'm not sure if the redaction is very confusing or it's just wrong.]
Anyway, ...
Later they talk only about single molecules instead of droplets. I think they only talk about droplets in the introduction of the press release, not the actual paper.
UV rays can remove electrons and create charged molecules. Also, molecule collisions sometimes create charged molecules (it's similar to rubbing fur and glass, but in a smaller scale). And storm lightning also create and create charged molecules. I'm not sure which one create most of them.
After the charged molecule interacts it will lose it charge, so IIUC they assume that the there will be some method to replace the air with uncharged molecules with new air with charged one, like breeze (I guess a fan will need too much electricity). Anyway, this will make it very difficult to stack too much of this device and keep a nice air flow.
>...electricity could be continuously harvested from the air using a specialized material made of protein nanowires grown from the bacterium Geobacter sulfurreducens
Does the device create its own cloud of "used-up" un-charged droplets? How quickly do they become re-charged, and by what process? Or do the "used" droplets condense? Could this be used as a combined source of water and power?
Is the reason droplets become charged in the first place because of the Earth's magnetic field? Does it involve weird stuff in the interaction of space and the upper atmosphere, like solar wind / ionosphere / Van Allen belts / cosmic rays? If this is deployed on a worldwide scale, how worried should we be about depleting the magnetic field or stripping away Earth's natural radiation protection?