China has created a solar panel that can generate electricity from rain

Chinese engineers from the Institute of Materials Science and Engineering in Qingdao presented a prototype of an all-weather solar panel that generates electricity both in the sun and in the rain. In the latter case, this can be done with the help of a graphene layer deposited on the surface of the panels.

Solar panels silently produce "clean" energy (although their production and utilization are also quite "dirty" and energy-consuming enterprises). Their main disadvantages are the lack of energy in the absence of the sun, for example, at night or in bad weather. The second problem and trying to solve the Chinese.

Graphene absorbs only 2% of visible light , so it can be easily applied to solar panels without much loss of their efficiency. And in the rain, when there is no sun and the panels do not work, raindrops come into play. They, together with graphene, having a thickness of one atom, form an electric double layer .
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Positively charged ions in rainwater react with free electrons in graphene, which is an excellent conductor. The resulting interaction leads to the generation of electricity with currents of the order of µA and a voltage of several tenths of a volt. The property of graphene to bind positive ions is also used in the processes of removal of lead ions and organic dyes from solutions

Other attempts to extract electricity from bad weather last year were made by scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Their laminated glass received energy from wind and rain due to the triboelectric effect.