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. Further, 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.

Investigation of electric potential induced by flowing water droplet on electrolyte-insulator-semiconductor structure

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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