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Ion Diode-like Heterojunction for Improving Electricity Generation from Water Droplets by Capillary Infiltration.

Kun NiBentian XuZhiqi WangQinyi RenWenbo GuBaoquan SunRuiyuan LiuXiaohong Zhang
Published in: Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) (2023)
Water-droplet-based electricity generators are emerging hydrovoltaic technologies that harvest energy from water circulation through strong interactions between water and nanomaterials. However, such devices exhibit poor current performance owing to their unclear driving force (evaporation or infiltration) and undesirable reverse diffusion current. Herein, a water-droplet-based hydrovoltaic electricity generator induced by capillary infiltration was fabricated with an asymmetric structure composed of a diode-like heterojunction formed by negatively and positively charged materials. This device generated current densities of 160 and 450 μA cm -2 at room temperature and 65°C, respectively. The heterojunction achieved a rectification ratio of 12, which effectively suppressed the reverse current caused by concentration differences. This resulted in improved charge accumulation of approximately 60 mC cm -2 in 1000 s, which was three times the value observed in the control device. When the area of the device was increased to 6 cm 2 , the current increased linearly to 1 mA, thus demonstrating the scale-up potential of the generator. The driving force of the streaming potential is primarily capillary infiltration, and rectification had not been previously observed. The proposed method of constructing ion-diode-like structures provides a new strategy for improving generator performance. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Keyphrases
  • room temperature
  • solar cells
  • high throughput
  • single cell
  • mass spectrometry
  • ionic liquid