Hydrocapacitor for Harvesting and Storing Energy from Water Movement

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces Vol. 10; no. 41; pp. 35273 - 35280
• Main Authors: Liu, Ruhao, Liu, Changhong, Fan, Shoushan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 17.10.2018
• Subjects: carbon nanotube; hydrocapacitor; energy conversion; nanogenerator; energy storage
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.8b12967

Based on porous carbon nanotube/polyaniline composite (CNT/PANI) and poly­(vinyl alcohol) gel, we fabricated centimeter-sized hydrocapacitors with dual functions of energy conversion and storage with an efficient low-cost method. Owning to excellent hydrophily and large specific capacitance of CNT/PANI, the hydrocapacitors can easily convert energy from water movement induced by capillarity, gravity, or air pressure difference into electricity and store the generated electricity. Especially, sandwich-like hydrocapacitors outputted large current of 1.65 mA through an external load of 100 Ω, and hydrocapacitors showed good extendibility by connecting in series. To explain the mechanism of hydrocapacitors in this work, a possible model based on capillarity and traditional streaming potential was proposed and discussed. Hydrocapacitors here also provide a reference for future integration of nanogenerators and energy storage parts.