Moisture Enabled Electricity from Hygroscopic Materials: A New Type of Clean Energy.

The water utilization is accompanied with the development of human beings. Whereas, the gaseous moisture is usually regarded as underexploited resources. The advances of highly-efficient hygroscopic materials endow the atmospheric water harvesting an intriguing solution to convert moisture into clean water. The discovery of hygroelectricity, which refers to the charge build-up at material surface dependent on humidity, and the following moisture enabled electric generation (MEG) realizes the energy conversion and directly output electricity. Much progress has been made since then to optimize the MEG performance, pushing forward the applications of MEG into practical level. Herein, the evolvement and development of MEG are systematically summarized in a chronological order. The optimization strategies of MEG are discussed and comprehensively evaluated. Then, the latest applications of MEG are presented, including high-performance powering units and self-powered devices. In the end, a perspective on the future development of MEG is given for inspiring more researchers into this promising area. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.