Renewable energy is the future. When you think of renewable energy, the likes of wind turbines, hydroelectric dams, geothermal power plants, and solar panels possibly come to mind. These are definitely the main foundations of the world’s renewable energy, but as some revolutionary work by Penn State University (PSU) claims, there may soon be another.
It’s generally recognized that when freshwater and saltwater meet, the forces of nature act to stabilize the salinity rise. Over time, the concentration of salt molecules will be even across the board.
The Zambezi River Delta, seen from space. This is the type of environment where the new hybrid technology would be placed. NASA
What you may not recognize, is that this process can also be used to produce an electric current.
If you put a barrier amid the two bodies of water, one that permits water to move through but stops the more immense salt molecules from crossing along, then a kind of pressure arises. Which is known as “osmotic pressure”, it upturns the more imbalanced the salt gradient gets.
The more the salt is clogged from traversing through to the other side of the barrier, the higher the salt concentration will get in the primary chamber. This intensifies the osmotic pressure on the second freshwater chamber. This pressure can then be renewed into energy that makes turbines to spin, and eventually you get electricity.
The appearance of salt in one chamber puts pressure on the other to take on some of the salinity. KDS4444/Wikimedia Commons; CC0
Team member Christopher Gorski, an assistant professor in environmental engineering at Penn State, said in a statement:
“The goal of this technology is to generate electricity from where the rivers meet the ocean,”
You can read further about this revolutionary process and how it works here. The team has confidently recommended that this hybrid technology could produce up to 40 percent of global electricity demands, without a large carbon footprint to boot.