2024 Volume 63 Issue 2 Pages 194-199
Water on Earth has the cycle in which water evaporates from the oceans, falls to the ground as rain, and returns to the oceans through rivers. Hydropower generation uses this cycle to generate electricity. While rivers exist only locally on the ground, water vapor in the air is a resource that is accessible in most environments on Earth. In recent years, technologies enabling electricity generation using this water vapor in the air or humidity are emerging. Electricity generation using humidity has the advantage of being able to generate power in any location, even in dark places, and is attracting attention as a potential convenient energy harvesting device for powering Internet of Things (IoT) devices. This paper outlines the basic concepts of these humidity-related electricity generation technologies and various methods, as well as the research and development of hygroelectric cell being developed by the authors.
