New Engineering Breakthrough: New Engine Can Work With Water and Evaporation [Video]

Researchers have developed an engine that can pull energy out of thin air, harvesting power from ambient evaporation of room temperature water.

"Water in nature is in constant transformation. We want to capture energy from evaporation. That process is very powerful, we haven't been able to harness it until now," explained study leader Ozgur Sahin, a Columbia University bioengineer.

"Evaporation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the natural environment and a dominant form of energy transfer in the Earth's climate. Engineered systems rarely, if ever, use evaporation as a source of energy, despite myriad examples of such adaptations in the biological world. Here, we report evaporation-driven engines that can power common tasks like locomotion and electricity generation."

According to researchers, the use of spore muscles could become normal in autonomous machines which can operate quite efficiently when they are near water. They added that machines can be developed to address various previously difficult obstacles and become more and more efficient.

 "Using these engines, we demonstrate an electricity generator that rests on water while harvesting its evaporation to power a light source, and a miniature car that moves forward as the water in the car evaporates," Sahin added.