Hakuna Matata

We report here a direct generation of measurable voltages and currents when a gas flows over a variety of solids even at the modest speed of a few meters per second. The underlying mechanism is an interesting interplay of Bernoulli’s principle and the Seebeck effect: Pressure differences along streamlines give rise to temperature differences across the sample; these in turn produce the measured voltage. The electrical signal is quadratically dependent on the Mach number M and proportional to the Seebeck coefficient of the solids. Results are presented for doped Si and Ge , single wall and multiwall carbon nanotubes, and graphite. Our results show that gas flow sensors and energy conversion devices can be constructed based on direct generation of electrical signals.

This is in continuation with their ongoing reserch on carbon nano tubes. Their Last paper was taken as a major experimental breakthrough in carbon nano tubes flow sensors and electricity generation and was published in the prestigious "Science" Journal in its ‘Science Express’ category — one that’s usually reserved for papers having ‘‘timeliness and importance’’.
This one is an extention to demonstrate the phenomenon with common gasses like Oxygen, Nitrogen etc flowing over Semiconductors besides Carbon Nanotubes and generating much larger magnitude of voltage that before.