New technology generates electricity ‘out of thin air’

Date posted
Funding Agency
(Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation)

Electrical engineers and microbiologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have created a device with electrically conductive protein nanowires (3 nanometers in diameter by 1–3 micrometers in length) produced by bacteria. The device uses these protein nanowires to create electricity from moisture in the air. The researchers say that this new technology could have significant implications for the future of renewable energy, climate change, and the future of medicine.