Ferrites as an Alternative Source of Renewable Energy for Hydroelectric Cell

Abstract

There are many conventional ways of producing energy at large scales such as fossil fuels, hydroelectric power station, wind energy, solar cell plants, marine energy, etc., but most of these require bulky plantation, huge manpower, wide land occupation and are non-portable and expensive to handle too. In the twenty-first century, there is still a huge gap between worldwide energy supply and its demand. The advances in the technology sector have also increased the consumption of energy, but the sources of generating the renewable energy remain limited. In order to account for these problems in recent years, several methods have been adopted and a significant research in this direction has been made by the invention of the hydroelectric cell by Dr. R. K. Kotnala�s group in 2016. Instead of using the magnetic character in the ferrite nanostructures, these nanomaterials were first time effectively exploited for direct energy harvesting application by using their capability to dissociate the absorbed water molecules on its porous surface. This allows the production of ions, which is then followed by the charge transfer of hydronium, hydroxyl and hydrogen ions between the electrodes of the ferrite nanostructures and results in the generation of an electric current across the circuit. The concept of the hydroelectric cell is new, and these cells are easily portable, inexpensive, biodegradable and eco-friendly in nature. This chapter provides an insight on the concept of spinel ferrite nanostructures for the application in the hydroelectric cell. � 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.