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Research Article | Open Access

Hybrid hydrovoltaic electricity generation driven by water evaporation

Xuemei Li1,2( ), Gu Feng2, Yiding Chen1,3, Jidong Li1, Jun Yin1,3, Wei Deng1( ), Wanlin Guo1,3( )
State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, Key Laboratory for Intelligent Nano Materials and Devices of the Ministry of Education, Institute for Frontier Science, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
College of Material Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
College of Aerospace Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 210016, China
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Graphical Abstract

Water evaporation is a ubiquitous natural process exploiting thermal energy from ambient environment. Hydrovoltaic technologies emerged in recent years offer one prospective route to generate electricity from water evaporation, which has long been overlooked. Herein, we developed a hybrid hydrovoltaic generator driven by natural water evaporation, integrating an “evaporation motor” with an evaporation-electricity device and a droplet-electricity device. A rotary motion of the “evaporation motor” relies on phase change of ethanol driven by water-evaporation induced temperature gradient. This motion enables the evaporation-electricity device to work under a beneficial water-film operation mode to produce output of ~4 V and ~0.2 µA, as well as propels the droplet-electricity device to convert mechanical energy into pulsed output of ~100 V and ~0.2 mA. As different types of hydrovoltaic devices require distinctive stimuli, it was challenging to make them work simultaneously, especially under one single driving force. We here for the first time empower two types of hydrovoltaic devices solely by omnipresent water evaporation. Therefore, this work presents a new pathway to exploiting water evaporation-associated ambient thermal energy and provides insights on developing hybrid hydrovoltaic generators.

Abstract

Water evaporation is a ubiquitous natural process exploiting thermal energy from ambient environment. Hydrovoltaic technologies emerged in recent years offer one prospective route to generate electricity from water evaporation, which has long been overlooked. Herein, we developed a hybrid hydrovoltaic generator driven by natural water evaporation, integrating an “evaporation motor” with an evaporation-electricity device and a droplet-electricity device. A rotary motion of the “evaporation motor” relies on phase change of ethanol driven by water-evaporation induced temperature gradient. This motion enables the evaporation-electricity device to work under a beneficial water-film operation mode to produce output of ~4 V and ~0.2 µA, as well as propels the droplet-electricity device to convert mechanical energy into pulsed output of ~100 V and ~0.2 mA. As different types of hydrovoltaic devices require distinctive stimuli, it was challenging to make them work simultaneously, especially under one single driving force. We here for the first time empower two types of hydrovoltaic devices solely by omnipresent water evaporation. Therefore, this work presents a new pathway to exploiting water evaporation-associated ambient thermal energy and provides insights on developing hybrid hydrovoltaic generators.

Keywords

hybrid hydrovoltaic generatorambient thermal energyevaporation motorwater evaporation

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Nano Research Energy
Volume 3 Issue 2,
June 2024
DOI: 10.26599/NRE.2024.9120110
Cite this article:
Li X, Feng G, Chen Y, et al. Hybrid hydrovoltaic electricity generation driven by water evaporation. Nano Research Energy, 2024, 3: e9120110. https://doi.org/10.26599/NRE.2024.9120110

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Received: 03 November 2023
Revised: 28 November 2023
Accepted: 29 November 2023
Published: 03 January 2024
© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Tsinghua University Press.

The articles published in this open access journal are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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