Bilayer Wood Membrane with Aligned Ion Nanochannels for Spontaneous Moist-Electric Generation

Water-enabled electricity generation (WEG) tech-nologies are considered to be an attractive and renewable approach to meet energy crisis and environmental pollution globally. However, the existing WEG technologies still face tremendous challenges including high material cost, harmful components, and specific environmental requirements. Herein, a high-performance wood-based moisture-enabled electric generator (WMEG) is fabricated. Natural wood is cut perpendicular to the tree growth direction and engineered by simple chemical modification. The obtained bilayer wood membrane has robust mechanical frame-work with aligned ion nanochannels, abundant dissociated functional groups, and spontaneous water adsorption in the air. At the relative humidity of 85%, one WMEG can generate a voltage of 0.57 V. The device can also effectively sense biological water information as a self-powered sensor. The biophile design contributes a practical moist-electric generation strategy that offers clean energy, especially for undeveloped and disaster-relief regions where electricity is limited by high cost or crippled power facilities.

Automated summary

Water-enabled electricity generation technologies are attractive and renewable solutions to global energy crisis and pollution. However, current technologies still face challenges such as high cost, harmful components, and specific environmental requirements. This study presents a high-performance wood-based moisture-enabled electric generator that can offer clean energy for undeveloped and disaster-relief regions.