Harvesting blue energy with fluidic NEMS

The energy of saline gradients, such as fresh water and sea water, is an alternative energy source with an enormous potential estimated to 1 TW world-wide. However this alternative energy is still largely unsued, as its capture requires the engineering and development of efficient energy-conversion technologies.
The emergence of the domain of nanofluidics,  combining the influence of surfaces and of confinement on the transport of fluids and ions, opens new perspectives.  Experiments on single nano-tubes have shown the possibility to convert saline gradient energy in electrical energy with power-densities exceeding by more than one thousand the capabilities of the most performant membrane-based systems.

This project in collaboration with the Laboratory of Interdisciplinary physics and the CEA-LETI explores the harvesting of saline gradient energy by the massive parallelization of fluidic solid-state nano-channels arranged in 3D architectured assemblies, tailored so as to optimize the fluid circulation and the energy recovery. Numerical results obtained in our team, show the possibility to outcome the harvested power density of membrane-based systems by orders of magnitude.

The objective of this project will be to interface, instrument, and conduct first experiments on prototype nanofluidic chips, in order to quantity their capabilities for converting saline gradient energy in electrical currents.
Qualifications of the applicant
This two-year research project is dedicated to students of the Soft Nano Program  in the M1 Soft Matter and Biophysics or in M1 Applied Mechanics.
Expected skills: taste for experiments, instrumentation, physical  and electrical measurements. A background in engineering physics or chemical engineering will be appreciated.
 
Published on March 5, 2021
Updated on November 24, 2023