Self-Powered Triboelectric Nanosensor for Microfluidics and Cavity-Confined Solution Chemistry

Micro total analysis system (μTAS) is one of the important tools for modern analytical sciences. In this paper, we not only propose the concept of integrating the self-powered triboelectric microfluidic nanosensor (TMN) with μTAS, but also demonstrate that the developed system can be used as an in situ tool to quantify the flowing liquid for microfluidics and solution chemistry. The TMN automatically generates electric outputs when the fluid passing through it and the outputs are affected by the solution temperature, polarity, ionic concentration, and fluid flow velocity. The self-powered TMN can detect the flowing water velocity, position, reaction temperature, ethanol, and salt concentrations. We also integrate the TMNs in a μTAS platform to directly characterize the synthesis of Au nanoparticles by a chemical reduction method.