New material harvests energy from water vapor

                MIT engineers have created a new polymer film that generated electricity by absorbing water vapor. The film absorbs tiny amounts of water vapor allowing it to curl up and own, and if we harness this continuous motion, we could drive robotic limbs or generate enough electricity to power micro- and nonelectric devices. “With a sensor powered by a battery, you have to replace it periodically. If you have this device, you can harvest energy from the environment so you don't have to replace it very often,” says Mingming Ma, a postdoc at MIT’s David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Mingming is also the lead author of a paper describing this new material.