Moisture adsorption-desorption full cycle power generation

Haiyan Wang; Tiancheng He; Xuanzhang Hao; Yaxin Huang; Houze Yao; Feng Liu; Huhu Cheng; Liangti Qu

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-30156-3

Moisture adsorption-desorption full cycle power generation

Nat Commun. 2022 May 9;13(1):2524. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-30156-3.

Authors

Haiyan Wang¹, Tiancheng He², Xuanzhang Hao², Yaxin Huang², Houze Yao², Feng Liu³, Huhu Cheng⁴, Liangti Qu^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Organic Optoelectronics & Molecular Engineering, Ministry of Education, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Nonlinear Mechanics, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China. liufeng@imech.ac.cn.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Organic Optoelectronics & Molecular Engineering, Ministry of Education, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China. huhucheng@tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁵ Key Laboratory of Organic Optoelectronics & Molecular Engineering, Ministry of Education, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China. lqu@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China. lqu@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn.

Abstract

Environment-adaptive power generation can play an important role in next-generation energy conversion. Herein, we propose a moisture adsorption-desorption power generator (MADG) based on porous ionizable assembly, which spontaneously adsorbs moisture at high RH and desorbs moisture at low RH, thus leading to cyclic electric output. A MADG unit can generate a high voltage of ~0.5 V and a current of 100 μA at 100% relative humidity (RH), delivers an electric output (~0.5 V and ~50 μA) at 15 ± 5% RH, and offers a maximum output power density approaching to 120 mW m^-2. Such MADG devices could conduct enough power to illuminate a road lamp in outdoor application and directly drive electrochemical process. This work affords a closed-loop pathway for versatile moisture-based energy conversion.