Tough and elastic hydrogel thermocells for heat energy utilization

Abstract

Hydrogel thermocells possess great potential in the energy conversion field as they directly absorb waste heat from the environment to drive redox reactions for continuous electricity generation. However, achieving high toughness and good elasticity simultaneously in hydrogel thermocells remains a challenge because of the inherent contradiction of energy dissipation mechanisms, severely limiting their practical applications and lifespan. To address this, a skin-like hydrogel network with a highly dense interwoven network is developed to construct hydrogel thermocells with good elasticity and high toughness. The dense network structure can effectively disperse the stress and hinder crack propagation, thus breaking the contradiction between high toughness and good elasticity. The thermocell realizes a toughness of 460 J m−2 while reaching an elastic limit strain of 350 %, far exceeding the elasticity of previous stretchable hydrogel thermocells. Meanwhile, it exhibits ultra-low hysteresis and excellent fatigue resistance under tensile and compressive cyclic loads. Moreover, the thermocell can work stably over long periods, enabling stable voltage output even under compression, bending, and stretching. In addition, the thermocell can power the LED lamp and calculator, and can also be connected in series to form large arrays, thus rendering it an ideal power source for wearable devices.