Advanced 3D-architected carbon-based photothermoelectric energy harvesters for self-powered and responsive magnetic and UV sensing

Abstract

Towards solving the technical challenges of self-powering wireless sensor networks (WSNs), feasibility studies of high-efficiency energy harvesters are expected to be break-through technologies. Herein, we propose a closed-loop self-powering system, for which we design a novel 3D-architecture carbon-based photothermoelectric organic composite phase-changing material (PCM) energy harvester for self-powered and responsive magnetic and UV sensing by infusing with Fe3O4 nanoparticles and tetradecanol as PCM. The closed-loop system possesses excellent energy storage, conversion efficiency up to 89.83 % as well as photothermoelectric conversion capacity with maximum output voltage and current of 196.6 mV and 8.64 mA, respectively. More importantly, the voltage provided by the phase-change-based photothermoelectricity enables it to be used as a microcapacitor with a specific capacitance of 31.05 F/g at 0.01 A/g. Moreover, it is responds to magnetic field and UV radiation with high sensitivity, the average response time being 1 s. This potential breakthrough composite paves way for use in a variety of high-energy self-powered agile sensing WSNs applications.