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Video of the week: renewable energy from evaporating water

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This week’s video comes from Columbia University where researchers have utilised evaporating water to create a floating, piston-driven engine that generates electricity, and a rotary engine that drives a miniature car.

 

Eva, the first evaporation-powered car, has a turbine engine that rotates as water evaporates from the wet paper lining the walls of the engine
Eva, the first evaporation-powered car, has a turbine engine that rotates as water evaporates from the wet paper lining the walls of the engine

When energy from evaporation is scaled up, the researchers predict, it could produce electricity from floating power generators, or from rotating machines akin to wind turbines that sit above water, said Ozgur Sahin, Ph.D., an associate professor of biological sciences and physics at Columbia University and lead author of a paper detailing the research in Nature Communications.