Non-planar dielectrics derived thermal and electrostatic field inhomogeneity for boosted weather-adaptive energy harvesting.

Abstract

Weather-adaptive energy harvesting of omnipresent waste heat and rain droplets, though promising in the field of environmental energy sustainability, is still far from practice due to its low electrical output owing to dielectric structure irrationality and unscalability. Here we present atypical upcycling of ambient heat and raindrop energy via an all-in-one non-planar energy harvester, simultaneously increasing solar pyroelectricity and droplet-based triboelectricity by two-fold, in contrast to conventional counterparts. The delivered non-planar dielectric with high transmittance confines the solar irradiance onto a focal hotspot, offering transverse thermal field propagation towards boosted inhomogeneous polarization with a generated power density of 6.1mW m-2 at 0.2 sun. Moreover, the enlarged lateral surface area of curved architecture promotes droplet spreading/separation, thus travelling the electrostatic field towards increased triboelectricity. These enhanced pyroelectric and triboelectric outputs, upgraded with advanced manufacturing, demonstrate applicability in adaptive sustainable energy harvesting on sunny, cloudy, night, and rainy days. Our findings highlight a facile yet efficient strategy, not only for weather-adaptive environmental energy recovery but also in providing key insights for spatial thermal/electrostatic field manipulation in thermoelectrics and ferroelectrics.