Electricity Generation From Ambient Water Evaporation in the Absence of Sunlight via PVA‐Based Porous Hydrogels

Abstract In the current era where electronics and technologies are getting smaller in size, off‐grid and battery‐free features are getting increasingly sought after. This motivates innovation in ambient energy harvesting from light, heat, and mechanical sources. Among these technologies, hydrovoltaics has emerged as a promising source of electricity by harvesting energy from ubiquitous water evaporation. However, the power densities of hydrovoltaics are so far limited to the order of hundreds of mW cm⁻ 2 . In this work, a porous polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel in combination with a thermoelectric generator (TEG) is devised to directly capture energy from water evaporation. It is found that under moderate…

• CU
  Chinese University of Hong Kong

  Award: 4055224
• SH
  Shun Hing Institute of Advanced Engineering

  Award: RNE-p3-24