When we think of ice and salt, it is normal to imagine a road in the middle of winter: the accumulated snow on the asphalt, the trucks spreading salt in a hurry and the neighbors trying not to slip on the icy sidewalks. It is a typical scene in the north or in the mountain areas, where winter turns the landscape into postcard, but also a daily challenge for those who have to move between cut roads or pedestrian crossings turned into traps.
What we usually see how a simple help against ice on roads, can actually hide an energy potential. A team from the University of Xi’an Jiaotong, in collaboration with ICN2 and Stony Brook University, has managed to try it in the laboratory.
A discovery with “taste” to salt. A pinch of salt for a material to deform, produce electricity. This phenomenon has a name and is called flexoelectricity. It had already been observed in moving glaciers or in ice plates under pressure, but never with results as powerful as those achieved in this study.
According to the studythe team frozen water with different concentrations of common salt (NaCl) and created ice blocks in several ways: cones, beams and plates. Then they applied flexion tests – check the ice on two supports and exert pressure from above – and measured the electricity generated. The result was surprising: salty ice generated up to 1,000 times more electric charge than pure ice.
The key ingredient. But how can salt enhance something as inert as ice? The answer is in the salted water microchannels that are trapped between the crystals. As the ICN2 press release detailssalt prevents ice from freezing. When folding, water and salt ions move from compressed areas to the stretched, generating an electric charge flow, what scientists call a “Current streaming”(Drag current).
In practical terms, the effect is so strong that experimental devices reached values comparable to the best piezoelectric materials used today in the industry, According to research.
Depend on ice. At first glance, this technology could have applications in extreme environments, such as scientific stations in polar regions, where installing conventional energy infrastructures is very difficult.
The finding contrasts with reality. Since 2000, glaciers have lost 273,000 million tons of water annually, According to ESA. That is equivalent to the consumption of the entire world population for three decades. The setback is already translates into a loss of 5% of the global ice volume, with visible consequences: increased sea level and less availability of fresh water in rivers such as Ebro. Thus, to talk about ice as an energy resource raises an uncomfortable paradox: depending on something that melts increasingly faster.
That’s not all. Beyond the environmental dilemmas, the study itself recognizes that there is still much to solve. As they point out in Techxploresalty ice devices suffer mechanical fatigue: after many flexion cycles, their ability to generate energy can fall to 80%. In addition, much of energy is lost in the form of heat, which makes efficiency still lower than that of commercial piezoelectric devices.
The look is wide. Even so, the finding opens a fascinating door. “Its advantages – abundance, sustainability and low cost – make it a promising candidate for clean technologies,” Underline the ICN2. And researchers believe that the model is not limited to ice: it could be applied to other porous solids containing fluids inside.
The paradox, however, persists: while science explores how to take advantage of the hidden energy on ice, climate change melts at an alarming pace. Perhaps this discovery not only serves to think about new technologies, but also to remember the value of a resource that is disappearing.
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