Power generation from microjet array of liquid water

Abstract

Micro/nano fluidic energy conversion devices have been reported for decades, but are still limited by low efficiency and output power in practical applications. Recently, several reports have demonstrated that the efficiency can be dramatically increased with microjet systems. However, previous devices with a single jet have low output power which is hard for utilization. Here, for the first time, we present a multi-pores microjet array generator and show that this device can achieve high output power with a simple design. The output performance is experimentally investigated by using a stainless steel micropores-array membrane with pore radius of 8 μm and thickness of 60 μm. The experiment results show that this generator can output a maximum voltage of ~85 kV and current of 1268.08 nA. The output power is 38 mW and the corresponding power density is up to 1.39 × 106 W m−2. This work may enable microjet systems being used in low power devices and open up a new prospect for environmental energy harvesting.