{"id":14865,"date":"2025-10-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/?p=14865"},"modified":"2025-09-30T11:47:42","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T09:47:42","slug":"electricity-from-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/electricity-from-ice\/","title":{"rendered":"Electricity from ice: a first. Salt makes it work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to get electricity from ice: salt is the key<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Can a humble ice cube produce electricity? Xin Wen and his team at Xi\u2019an Jiaotong University have shown that it can. They discovered that ice is <strong>flexoelectric<\/strong> \u2014 <strong>it generates electricity when bent<\/strong>. Scientists already suspected that colliding glaciers might produce charge, but no one had recreated the effect in the lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The secret lies in salt. The researchers froze water with different concentrations of table salt and bent the samples. The results surprised them: <strong>salty ice proved a thousand times more effective at generating electricity than pure ice<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The promise of the technology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Why does salt make such a difference? Using microscopes and spectroscopes, the team peered inside the samples. Salt prevents complete freezing and creates tiny channels filled with briny water. <strong>When the ice bends, pressure forces the liquid through those channels<\/strong> \u2014 and moving water carries electric charge. Think of it as a miniature hydropower plant hidden inside the ice structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The potential is enormous.<strong> Ice covers about 10 percent of Earth\u2019s surface<\/strong> \u2014 an untapped energy reserve not only here but elsewhere. <em>\u201cThe high flexoelectricity of salty ice brings the vision of harvesting electricity from ice closer to reality and could matter for electrical activity in Earth\u2019s ice-covered regions and on ocean worlds such as Europa or Enceladus,\u201d<\/em> the authors write in their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41563-025-02332-5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Nature Materials<\/a> paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Limits \u2014 and off-world prospects<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The road to commercial \u201cice power\u201d won\u2019t be easy. The technology faces serious hurdles. Devices made of salty ice suffer from strong material fatigue: repeated bending cycles can slash output by up to 80 percent. Another problem is relatively low efficiency \u2014 much of the generated electricity is lost as heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet <strong>the most exciting applications may lie beyond Earth<\/strong>. Europa and Enceladus \u2014 moons of Jupiter and Saturn \u2014 are wrapped in thick ice shells, natural testing grounds for this method. <strong>Could Europa\u2019s crust one day help power future space bases?<\/strong> Researchers are cautiously optimistic, noting that natural geologic processes on these worlds may provide the pressures needed to trigger the flexoelectric effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read more about <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/a-new-era-of-miniaturization-record-small-microchips\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a new era of miniaturization<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">An unexpected energy resource<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This approach also challenges what we call \u201cwaste\u201d or \u201cnuisance.\u201d <strong>The ice that paralyzes winter transport could become a valuable resource<\/strong>. It\u2019s a circular way of thinking \u2014 turning problems into solutions. Just as solar panels harness \u201cfree\u201d sunlight, electricity from ice could tap naturally abundant ice. And unlike sunshine, in some regions ice is available around the clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With salt as the catalyst, scientists show it\u2019s possible to generate electricity from ice. The hurdles are real, but the idea opens fresh paths for clean energy on Earth \u2014 and perhaps on the icy worlds waiting in our cosmic backyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Read this article in Polish<\/em>: <a href=\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/prad-z-lodu-kluczem-jest-sol\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bezprecedensowe odkrycie. Chi\u0144scy badacze uzyskali\u00a0pr\u0105d\u00a0z\u00a0lodu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In winter we curse the ice on sidewalks and roads. Chinese scientists have now found a way to turn frozen water into clean power \u2014 to generate electricity from ice. The key is salt. What could this new technology make possible?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":275,"featured_media":14867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[1344,1862,1863,1864,834,821],"class_list":["post-14865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-electricity","tag-electricity-from-ice","tag-ice","tag-salt","tag-science","tag-technology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Electricity from ice: a first. Salt makes it work<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Electricity from ice becomes reality: Chinese researchers show salty ice can generate power. 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