Harvesting energy from low-frequency excitations through alternate contacts between water and two dielectric materials.

ABSTRACT: Recent studies have demonstrated the benefits of water-dielectric interfaces in electrostatic energy harvesting. Most efforts have been focused on extracting the kinetic energy from the motions of water drops on hydrophobic surfaces, and thus, the resulting schemes inherently prefer cases where the water drops move at a high speed, or vibrate at a high frequency. Here we report a method for directly harvesting ambient mechanical energy as electric potential energy through water droplets by making alternate contacts with CYTOP and PTFE thin films. Because CYTOP and PTFE acquire significantly different surface charge densities during contact with water, such a difference can be utilized to effectively generate electricity. We demonstrate this concept using prototype devices fabricated on sil

SUBMITTER: Yu J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5719356 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature