Nanotubes Able to Harness Energy from Differences in Salinity of Fresh Water and Salt Water

Using boron nitride nanotubes, researchers have discovered a new method for harnessing energy from the salinity difference between fresh water and salt water.
 
The salinity difference between fresh water and salt water could be a source of renewable energy. However, power yields from existing techniques are not high enough to make them viable. A solution to this problem may now have been found. A team led by physicists at the Institut Lumière Matière in Lyon (CNRS / Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1), in collaboration with the Institut Néel (CNRS), has discovered a new means of harnessing this energy: osmotic flow through boron nitride nanotubes generates huge electric currents, with 1,000 times the efficiency of any previous system. To achieve this result, the researchers developed a highly novel experimental device that enabled them, for the first time, to study osmotic fluid transport through a single nanotube. Their findings are published in the 28 February issue of Nature.
 
When a reservoir of salt water is brought into contact with a reservoir of fresh water through a special kind of semipermeable membrane, the resulting osmotic phenomena make it possible to produce electricity from the salinity gradients. This can be done in two different ways: either the osmotic pressure differential between the two reservoirs can drive a turbine, or a membrane that only passes ions can be used to produce an electric current.
 
Concentrated at the mouths of rivers, the Earth’s osmotic energy potential has a theoretical capacity of at least 1 terawatt — the equivalent of 1,000 nuclear reactors. However, the technologies available for harnessing this energy are relatively inefficient, producing only about 3 watts per square meter of membrane. Today, a team of physicists at the Institut Lumière Matière in Lyon (CNRS / Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1), in collaboration with the Institut Néel (CNRS), may have found a solution to overcome this obstacle. Their primary goal was to study the dynamics of fluids confined in nanometric spaces, such as nanotubes.