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Nano Research Energy 2024, 3: e9120110 https://doi.org/10.26599/NRE.2024.9120110
Research Article | Open Access | Issue | Published: 03 January 2024

Hybrid hydrovoltaic electricity generation driven by water evaporation

Show Author's Information 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
Keywords:
water evaporation, ambient thermal energy, evaporation motor, hybrid hydrovoltaic generator
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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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

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.


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About this article

Hybrid hydrovoltaic electricity generation driven by water evaporation

Show Author's information 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

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: water evaporation, ambient thermal energy, evaporation motor, hybrid hydrovoltaic generator

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Received: 03 November 2023
Revised: 28 November 2023
Accepted: 29 November 2023
Published: 03 January 2024
Issue date: June 2024

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© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Tsinghua University Press.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. T2293691, 12172176, 12272181, 12311530052, and 12150002), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2019YFA0705400), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Nos. BK20220074, BK20211191, and BK20212008), the Research Fund of State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control for Aerospace Structures (MCMS-I-0421G01 and MCMS-I-0422K01), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (NE2023003, NC2023001, NJ2023002, and NJ2022002) and the Fund of Prospective Layout of Scientific Research for NUAA (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics).

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