Abstract
Hygroelectricity is proposed as a means to produce electric power from air by absorbing gaseous or vaporous water molecules, which are ubiquitous in the atmosphere. Here, using a synergy between a hygroscopic bulk graphene oxide with a heterogeneous structure and interface mediation between electrodes/materials with Schottky junctions, we develop a high-performance hygroelectric generator unit with an output voltage approaching 1.5 V. High voltage (e.g., 18 V with 15 units) can be easily reached by simply scaling up the number of hygroelectric generator units in series, enough to drive commercial electronic devices. This work provides insight for the design and development of hygroelectric generators that may promote the efficient conversion of potential energy in the environmental atmosphere to electricity for practical applications.
Highlights
Hygroelectricity is proposed as a means to produce electric power from air by absorbing gaseous or vaporous water molecules, which are ubiquitous in the atmosphere
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) demonstrates that the C/O atomic ratio for gradient-reduced GO (grGO) on the top surface of h-graphene oxide (GO) is about 3:1, which is much higher than the value of its bottom GO side (2:1) (Supplementary Figs 3, 4)
Energydispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) spectra further indicate that the C/O atomic ratio decreases gradually within a height range of ~ 40 μm of grGO from the top to the bottom side, while the C/O atomic ratio almost remains unchanged in the unreduced GO section of heterogeneous graphene oxide (h-GO) (Fig. 2c)
Summary
Hygroelectricity is proposed as a means to produce electric power from air by absorbing gaseous or vaporous water molecules, which are ubiquitous in the atmosphere. Using a synergy between a hygroscopic bulk graphene oxide with a heterogeneous structure and interface mediation between electrodes/materials with Schottky junctions, we develop a high-performance hygroelectric generator unit with an output voltage approaching 1.5 V. By using hygroscopic graphene oxide (GO), we have developed a series of hygroelectric generators (HEGs) that can directly produce electricity by absorbing abundant water molecules in air, showing excellent performance and environmental compatibility[6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. By adopting an effective synergy strategy of heterogeneous reconfiguration of oxygen-containing functional groups on hygroscopic GO and mediation of electrodes/materials interfaces with well-designed Schottky junctions (Fig. 1b), we develop a high-voltage HEG with output approaching 1.5 V. A voltage of 18 V is achieved by simple connection of 15 units in series, powering commercial electronic devices
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