Sunlight‐Coordinated High‐Performance Moisture Power in Natural Conditions

Abstract

AbstractIt is a challenge to spontaneously harvest multiple clean sources from the environment for upgraded energy‐converting systems. The ubiquitous moisture and sunlight in nature are attractive for sustainable power generation especially. A high‐performance light‐coordinated “moist‐electric generator” (LMEG) based on the rational combination of a polyelectrolyte and a phytochrome is herein developed. By spontaneous adsorption of gaseous water molecules and simultaneous exposure to sunlight, a piece of 1 cm2 composite film offers an open‐circuit voltage of 0.92 V and a considerable short‐circuit current density of up to 1.55 mA cm−2. This record‐high current density is about two orders of magnitude improvement over that of most conventional moisture‐enabled systems, which is caused by moisture‐induced charge separation accompanied with photoexcited carrier migration, as confirmed by a dynamic Monte Carlo device simulation. Flexible devices with customizable size are available for large‐scale integration to effectively work under a wide range of relative humidity (about 20–100%), temperature (10–80 °C), and light intensity (30–200 mW cm−2). The wearable and portable LMEGs provide ample power supply in natural conditions for indoor and outdoor electricity‐consuming systems. This work opens a novel avenue to develop sustainable power generation through collecting multiple types of natural energy by a single hybrid harvester.