Sepiolite-Based Nanogenerator Driven by Water Evaporation

This work introduces a new type of water evaporation-driven nanogenerator (S-WEG) utilizing the natural mineral sepiolite, which capitalizes on its hierarchical nanoporous architecture and intrinsic hydrophilicity to harvest energy from ambient humidity through capillary-driven evaporation. The S-WE...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Liwei Zhao, Guoxing Jiang, Xing Zhang, Chunchang Wang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-06-01
Series:Nanomaterials
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4991/15/13/983
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Summary:This work introduces a new type of water evaporation-driven nanogenerator (S-WEG) utilizing the natural mineral sepiolite, which capitalizes on its hierarchical nanoporous architecture and intrinsic hydrophilicity to harvest energy from ambient humidity through capillary-driven evaporation. The S-WEG, fabricated via a facile drop-coating drying method, demonstrates remarkable mechanical flexibility and sustained operational reliability. Our results demonstrate that by optimizing evaporation height and width, the S-WEG can generate a short-circuit current of ~0.6 μA and an open-circuit voltage of ~0.9 V. Through series and parallel configurations of multiple S-WEG units, the current and voltage outputs can be effectively amplified to power small-scale electronics.
ISSN:2079-4991