The company claims it can harvest useful amounts of electricity directly from the atmosphere. This is a controversial claim. However, the technology can definitely help harvest some energy from the atmosphere. Lets see how this works.
The Earth’s surface, the ionosphere, and the atmosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrical circuit. So, there is always free electricity in the air.
Ion Power Group uses ion collectors elevated above ground to harvest this free electricity. Ion collectors are made up of fibers of graphene and silicene. The collected energy is stored in batteries. The stored energy is used to produce hydrogen which may be used to power hydrogen powered cars.
Ion collector radius increases with altitude. Accordingly, ion collectors are suspended high using balloons or kites.
Windmills are equipped with energy collecting fibers. So windmills can produce power even when there is not enough wind to turn propellers.
Ion collectors can be used in Martian atmosphere as well. They can harvest free electricity in the Martian atmosphere. They produce power day and night, and even during Martian dust storms.
Company believes the ion collectors can be installed on transportation vehicles of any kind – airplanes, drones, satellites.
Some of the claims made by the company are controversial. However, these ion collectors might produce sufficient amounts of electricity to ultra power low current Internet Of Things (IOT) devices. So this technology could end up being widely used as IOT devices are expected to be ubiquitous.
The company has obtained patents in many other countries as well – https://ionpowergroup.com/patents/.
Patent Information
Publication number: US20160043661 A1
Patent Title: Energy Collection
Publication type: Application
Application number: US 14/454,308
Publication date: Feb 11, 2016
Filing date: Aug 7, 2014
Priority date: Aug 7, 2014
Also published as: WO2016022207A1
Inventors: Clint McCowen
Original Assignee: Ion Power Group Llc