Wednesday, 16 May 2018
Ballroom 6ABC (Washington State Convention Center)
Recently, various energy transducers driven by the relative motion of solids and liquids have been demonstrated. However, in relation to the energy transducer, a proper understanding of the dynamic behavior of ions remains unclear. Moreover, the energy density is low for practical usage mainly due to structural limitations, a lack of material development stemming from the currently poor understanding of the mechanisms, and the intermittently generated electricity given the characteristics of the water motion (pulsed signals). Here, we demonstrate a method by which to generate continuous electrical energy with the flow of a water droplet through an electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor (EIS) structure. The output power and energy conversion efficiency of the transducer are 0.373 uW/g and 29.8 %, respectively, where v is the speed of the water droplet. We propose and verify a hypothesis pertaining to the ion-dynamic operation mechanism of the transducer which holds that the electron flow is induced by the adsorption and desorption of ions. Further, we describe ion specificity and bio-functionality, an important characteristic of electrical signals generated by macroscopic droplet motion, in relation to the potential profile of electric double layer, which is determined by the characteristics of microscopic ion properties.