Laminar regenerated cellulose membrane employed for high-performance photothermal-gating osmotic power harvesting

Abstract

Inspired by acute temperature sensors in the mammalian sensory system to seek comfortable living environment, we construct temperature sensing nanochannels that are tightly linked to photo gating to form photothermal controlled nanochannels membrane. This membrane arises from the composite of laminar regenerated cellulose (RC) membrane formed by dissolution and regeneration of cellulose in the novel superbase-derived ionic liquid and poly-l-lysine (PLL)-modified conical nanochannels polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. Fe3O4 nanoparticles are introduced into RC membrane as gating modifiers, controlling ion flux and osmotic energy conversion. Nanochannels are activated upon photo, inducing temperature changes result in PLL molecule structure shifted from α-helix to β-sheet. The difference in the rectification ratio at different temperatures is associated with photothermal-dependent opening and closing, its maximum is 116.76. This system could deliver an output power of approximately 4.9 W/m2 in osmotic energy harvesting. Our results suggest a simple photothermal-gating ion transport principle in laminar RC membrane.