Nanofluidic Membrane with Spent Battery Residues for Efficient Energy Generation

Zhenzhen Guo; Yuchuan Xiong; Yurong Han; Yueyue Wang; Muhammad Sultan Irshad; Xianbao Wang

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c07085

Nanofluidic Membrane with Spent Battery Residues for Efficient Energy Generation

ACS Omega. 2023 Nov 17;8(48):46066-46072. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c07085. eCollection 2023 Dec 5.

Authors

Zhenzhen Guo^{1

2}, Yuchuan Xiong², Yurong Han², Yueyue Wang², Muhammad Sultan Irshad^{2

3}, Xianbao Wang²

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang 473003, China.
² School of Materials Science and Engineering, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China.
³ Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Micro/Nano Optomechatronic Engineering, College of Mechatronics and Control Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, P. R. China.

Abstract

Harvesting energy in the ambient environment has become a dominant energy source and is promising toward a sustainable perspective. However, developing an energy generator with readily available raw materials and continuous output performance remains a challenge. Herein, we have demonstrated that a nanofluidic membrane with an asymmetric structure device (ASD) design by using available raw materials spent battery residues can achieve continuous power generation. The ASD can generate a voltage of ∼0.5 V by dropping 0.1 mL of water. Detailed experimental results reveal that ions in water play a synergistic role in enhancing output performance. By dropping 0.1 mL of seawater, the power output of ∼46.67 mW m^-2 can be readily derived with voltage of ∼0.7 V. The work opens a viable way to generate electric power by environmental energy with facile structure design and easy-to-access materials. The output energy will greatly promote practical applications such as the power supply of low-power devices.