The water droplet with huge charge density excited by triboelectric nanogenerator for water sterilization

Hongchun Luo; Guangqin Gu; Wanyu Shang; Wenhe Zhang; Tingyu Wang; Peng Cui; Bao Zhang; Junmeng Guo; Gang Cheng; Zuliang Du

doi:10.1088/1361-6528/ac121e

The water droplet with huge charge density excited by triboelectric nanogenerator for water sterilization

Nanotechnology. 2021 Jul 23;32(41). doi: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac121e.

Authors

Affiliation

¹ Key Lab for Special Functional Materials of Ministry of Education, National & Local Joint Engineering Research Center for High-efficiency Display and Lighting Technology, Collaborative Innovation Center of Nano Functional Materials and Applications, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475004, People's Republic of China.

PMID: 34233313
DOI: 10.1088/1361-6528/ac121e

Abstract

Water is one of the most essential resources for the survival of human beings and all other living things. For the point of daily use, water sterilization has enormous social and economic significance, especially for remote and undeveloped areas. Here, we developed a self-powered water sterilization device, which consists of a rotating-disk freestanding triboelectric-layer mode triboelectric nanogenerator (RF-TENG), a voltage-multiplying circuit, and a water droplet control system. The output voltage of the RF-TENG is boosted by a voltage-multiplying circuit and then utilized to charge water droplet. When the rotation rate of the RF-TENG is 300 rpm, the output voltage of a six-fold voltage-multiplying circuit can reach 9319 V, and a 62.50μl water droplet can be positively charged to 6320 nC at the flow rate of 0.31 ml min^-1. The charge density and electric filed of the water droplet can reach 101.12 nCμl^-1and 11.28 kV cm^-1, respectively. The charged water droplet can killE. coliandS. aureusquickly and efficiently through electroporation mechanism. With the advantages of low cost, simple in fabrication and usage, portability, and etc, the self-powered water sterilization device has wide application prospects in remote and undeveloped areas.

Keywords: charge excitation; charged water droplet; triboelectric nanogenerator; ultra-high charge density; water sterilization.