4,218 publications from this institution
Abstract Although natural evaporation absorbs substantial thermal energy from the ambient environment, efficiently utilizing this high‐entropy energy remains challenging. Here, the first water evaporation‐induced triboelectric nanogenerator is proposed. It only uses tap water to harvest low‐grade heat energy from the surroundings to convert it into electricity. The natural evaporation of the liquid can generate unintermittent electricity with an open‐circuit voltage of 382 V, a peak power of 0.42 mW, and three orders of magnitude enhancement up to 59.7 mJ mL −1 after consuming the same amount of tap water compared with the droplet‐based electricity generators. After which, the excellent power output lights 2 W LED and drives wearable electronic devices. This device also inhibits carbon steel materials' corrosion in solutions through the evaporation effect of the salt water on the spot. The present study provides novel insights for triboelectric nanogenerators regarding energy sources and promotes the practical application of evaporation‐power generation technology.
Ferroelectric materials use both the pyroelectric effect and piezoelectric effect for energy conversion. A ferroelectric BaTiO3 -based pyro-piezoelectric sensor system is demonstrated to detect temperature and pressure simultaneously. The voltage signal of the device is found to enhance with increasing temperature difference with a sensitivity of about 0.048 V °C-1 and with applied pressure with a sensitivity of about 0.044 V kPa-1 . Moreover, no interference appears in the output voltage signals when piezoelectricity and pyroelectricity are conjuncted in the device. A novel 4 × 4 array sensor system is developed to sense real-time temperature and pressure variations induced by a finger. This system has potential applications in machine intelligence and man-machine interaction.