Flexible graphene oxide/mixed cellulose ester films for electricity generation and solar desalination

Abstract

Converting ambient thermal energy into electricity, a promising strategy for energy regeneration, has aroused enormous interest of researchers and technologists in eliminating the obstacle of energy shortage. However, traditional technologies used to generate electricity are not capable to efficiently settle green power supply and conversion, suffering from complicated preparation processes and high-cost materials, and largely hinder their practical applications. Here, a simple device of graphene oxide/mixed cellulose ester films was fabricated for solar water evaporation through photothermal conversion to electricity generation. The well-designed device can not only convert solar energy into electricity, but also make full use of the photothermal effect of graphing oxide for solar desalination. As a result, the device successfully not only reduces the cost of material and avoids the complex processes, but also can constantly export a power density of 20.5 μW cm−3 with the evaporation of water under a light intensity of 1 kW m−2. This study supplies a low-cost, flexible device, improving the utilization efficiency of environmental energy and increasing the possibility of practical applications.