Self‐Powered Room‐Temperature High‐Sensitivity Acetone Gas Sensing System

Abstract

Acetone is widely used as a solvent in industry, which is volatile and harmful to the environment and people’ health. Hence, it is very important for real‐time detection of acetone concentration in exhaust gas or the surrounding air. Herein, a self‐powered acetone gas‐sensing system (SASS) based on passive half‐wave rectification power management circuits (HW‐PMCs), enhanced pulsed triboelectric nanogenerator (pulsed‐TENG), and Co3O4 acetone gas sensor is reported. First, HW‐PMC is developed based on the half‐wave rectifier with 470 μF capacitor and limited capacitor voltage (<5.5 V) to store energy efficiently. Results demonstrate that simulated energy storage efficiency of HW‐PMC is 42.2% and is 26.3 times higher than that of conventional PMCs. Then, the external capacitor is connected to electrodes of pulsed‐TENG, which forms enhanced pulsed‐TENG. The highest energy storage efficiency of HW‐PMC can reach 25.8% using enhanced pulsed‐TENG. The calculator is successfully powered using enhanced pulsed‐TENG and HW‐PMC. Finally, according to the characteristics of HW‐PMC, enhanced pulsed‐TENG, and Co3O4 gas sensor, SASS is developed and can detect 2 ppm of acetone at room temperature. SASS is important to environmental protection and reduction of production cost.