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All‐Printed Porous Carbon Film for Electricity Generation from Evaporation‐Driven Water Flow
Author(s) -
Ding Tianpeng,
Liu Kang,
Li Jia,
Xue Guobin,
Chen Qian,
Huang Liang,
Hu Bin,
Zhou Jun
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
advanced functional materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.069
H-Index - 322
eISSN - 1616-3028
pISSN - 1616-301X
DOI - 10.1002/adfm.201700551
Subject(s) - materials science , evaporation , electricity , process engineering , power density , energy storage , porosity , electricity generation , porous medium , electric power , carbon fibers , power (physics) , nanotechnology , electrical engineering , composite material , engineering , physics , composite number , thermodynamics , quantum mechanics
Converting environmental “waste energies” into electricity via a natural process is an ideal strategy for environmental energy harvesting and supplying power for distributed energy‐consuming devices. This paper reports that evaporation‐driven water flow within an all‐printed porous carbon film can reliably generate sustainable voltage up to 1 V with a power density of ≈8.1 µW cm −3 under ambient conditions. The output performance of the device can be easily scaled up and used to power low‐power consumption electronic devices or for energy storage. Furthermore, the device is successfully used without electric storage as a direct power source for electrodeposition of silver microstructures. Because of the ubiquity of water evaporation in nature and the low cost of materials involved, the study presents a novel avenue to harvest ambient energy and has potential applications in low‐cost, green, self‐powered devices and systems.