To get power in our homes most of us either use power from the Electric Board with wires running from them to us. Others use electric generators, and the renewable guys have solar panels installed.
But the future is about to get more interesting as there is unlimited power to be gotten when you give your house that deserved fresh coat of paint. Sounds almost like science fiction right? Yes, I do think so too.
But some researchers from RMIT University of Australia Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh and Dr Torben Daeneke wants to turn this fantasy into reality.
In the quest for tomorrow's renewable source, every means are exploited. Paints, often associated with health issues due to its volatile organic compounds (VOC)which are often harmful in high levels now has a bigger role to play in this quest.
How it works
The material for the paint is synthetic molybdenum-sulphide. This material behaves like a semiconductor and forces the water molecules to split into hydrogen and oxygen.
This synthetic molybdenum-sulphide behaves like silica gel (those whitish balls found in new shoes, electronics etc that keep stuff dry). The mixture of it with titanium oxide (the white substance that is one of the constituents of paint) creates hydrogen fuel from solar energy and moist air.
“Our new development has a big range of advantages,” he said. “There’s no need for clean or filtered water to feed the system. Any place that has water vapour in the air, even remote areas far from water, can produce fuel.” Source
A diagram of the RMIT-developed solar paint. (Credit: RMIT)
This technology could function just ok in remote areas far from water.
And because it’s effectively just a white paint, you could put it on your house or fence to create another kind of clean energy with a little humidity and sunlight. Source
This basically makes the wall painted with this paint an energy generator. The hydrogen fuel produced could be used in either fuel cells or in the combustion engine.
The technology is expected to take another five years before the final product is ready for the market at an expected cheap price.
The researchers have high hopes that when it goes mainstream that it would shift the fossil-fuel economy to that of hydrogen fuel (some cars and buses are already hydrogen-fuel powered) as it is more efficient and cleaner alternative.
Thank you very much.
You're saying it can be painted on, but how do you capture the hydrogen then?
It is still a work in progress
But this method is cheap and also uses less energy consuming method compared to the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen which uses so much energy to produce the hydrogen fuel that it becomes costly to produce hydrogen fuel.
The world is evolving. With time we won't be needing light bulbs to illuminate our houses. Interesting article @greenrun.
I just hope when it's released to the market, it can be affordable.
Thanks a lot. I am a fan of other sources of energy that is not fossil fuel.
Beautiful write up I like the every bit of it. Its quite informative. Well done
Thanks a lot
God bless the great minds that thought about this stuff. Such energy will make the world such a beautiful place at the same time a safer place.
I can agree with such sentiment. Safer is always better.
Glad to know that ways of generating electrinc energy is being diversified.
I hope there will #Environmentl_Impact_Assessment to ascertain if this very new invention with pose nor render devastating consequences to our ecosystem?
@greenrun keep up the good work of constantly enlightening us about new invention that will be of benefit to mankind.
I believe they have five years to settle all those issues before going mainstream. Thanks a lot.
This is really brilliant, there is nothing that would be used to compare light. A world without light is messed up, thats why where I come from, we can not wait for great innovations like this to suffice.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful information.
This is very correct. We need energy for various modern day living tasks
Very true. Energy is the center of everything that promotes good life, might be funny but true.
That is true
@greenrun, this is amazingly wonderful. The future certainly holds better things for us. Thanks for the enlightenment.
@kayceesuave
It is sure is enlightening. Thank you very much.
This is not the first time an Australian has tried to come up with a solar paint. Professor Paul Dastoor from Newcastle University back in 2010 also had an idea for solar paint. It is good to see that it is still a product being worked on. Link goes to a story talking about it. http://www.greenlivingpedia.org/Solar_paint
I also sort of recall someone in California also working on a solar paint but could not find that story.
All the sun in their country could account for their scientists looking for a way to use some of it in getting an alternative source of energy.
This is really amazing!!!
Never knew Molybdenum could be this useful as an element.
Thanks for educating me
Welcome to the club. The more I check on steemit, the more I realise many things I do not know.
@greenrun let's make the world a greener place..
I agree with you on that.
Hello @greenrun
You always bringing new stuffs to feed my eyes n brain. Well, this is a great advancement in energy generation. I hope they'll be successful in completing for market use in five years and my biggest hope is it being affordable.
Steem on sir!
@learnandteach01
Thank you.
This is good to know the amazing things that future holds with the help of science. Goodbye to darkness and welcome to the world of illumination.
Kudos to you
Especially in a country called Nigeria 😊😊😊
hehehe why Nigeria @tfame3865
Though is gonna help my dear country big time. Naija Noni
@tfame3865 you can be that change we all want. The people holding us back are not stronger than us.
@maintain4real-eu Roger that. Goodbye darkness.
My electric bill is crazy so I am interested
That's true, anything to be free from fossil fuel high cost of energy production.
This is an exciting emerging technology. Hope to see it in Nigeria as soon as it is embraced
That would be a welcomed development
Now that's going to beyond revolutionary epic infact
I think it'd be too. Thanks for reading.
What would be the estimated cost if this was to become available to consumers?
Looking at the technology it should be cheap. They didn't say.
This is another environment -friendly research and I will say more grease to their elbow
It is environmentally friendly and would be cheaper too. Thank you for reading.
the concept seems to be very interesting to me :)
It is an interesting concept
Really educative post.
Thanks for reading. Keep steeming