Osmotic engine converting energy from salinity difference to a hydraulic accumulator by utilizing polyelectrolyte hydrogels

Osmotic and hydraulic adjustment of mangrove saplings to extreme salinity.

Salinity tolerance in plant species varies widely due to adaptation and acclimation processes at the cellular and whole-plant scales. In mangroves, extreme substrate salinity induces hydraulic failure and ion excess toxicity and reduces growth and survival, thus suggesting a potentially critical role for physiological acclimation to salinity. We tested the hypothesis that osmotic adjustment, a ...

Osmotic properties of polyelectrolyte hydrogels in physiological salt solutions

Corrcspondence/Reprint request: Dr. Ferenc Horkay, Ph.D .. Section oo Tissue Biophysics and Biomimetics, National Institutes of Health, Bldg. 13, Room 3WJ6B, 13 South Drive, Bethcsda, MD 20892, USA.E-mail:[email protected] Abstract The effect of cations on the osmotic properties of chemically cross-linked sodium polyacrylate hydrogels has been investigated. The variation of the osmotic swell...

Batteries for efficient energy extraction from a water salinity difference.

The salinity difference between seawater and river water is a renewable source of enormous entropic energy, but extracting it efficiently as a form of useful energy remains a challenge. Here we demonstrate a device called "mixing entropy battery", which can extract and store it as useful electrochemical energy. The battery, containing a Na(2-x)Mn(5)O(10) nanorod electrode, was shown to extract ...

Mathematical Modelling of a Hydraulic Accumulator for Hydraulic Hybrid Drives

Osmotic Engine: Translating Osmotic Pressure into Macroscopic Mechanical Force via Poly(Acrylic Acid) Based Hydrogels

Poly(acrylic acid)-based hydrogels can swell up to 100-1000 times their own weight in desalinated water due to osmotic forces. As the swelling is about a factor of 2-12 lower in seawater-like saline solutions (4.3 wt% NaCl) than in deionized water, cyclic swelling, and shrinking can potentially be used to move a piston in an osmotic motor. Consequently, chemical energy is translated into mechan...