Abstract
Water-induced Electric Generators (WEGs) exhibit tremendous promise as
sustainable energy sources harvesting electricity through the
interaction between materials and water utilizing the hydrovoltaic
effect, an innovative green energy harvesting method. However, existing
WEG devices predominantly rely on inorganic materials with limited
research on naturally available, bio-based materials for hydrovoltaic
energy harvesting. This study introduces a novel nutshell-based
hydrovoltaic WEG for the first time. This low-cost, organic, and
efficient renewable energy source can generate a voltage above 600 mV
with a power density exceeding 5.96 µW·cm−2 utilizing streaming and
evaporation potential methodologies, which can be sustained for more
than a week. Notably, after further chemical treatments and combining
the physical and chemical phenomena, output voltage and maximum current
density reach a record high of 1.21 V and 347.2 µA·cm−2respectively,
which outperforms most inorganic and organic materials based WEGs. By
connecting two units in series and parallel this eco-friendly WEG can
power an LCD calculator without the assistance of any rectifier. We
believe that this novel nutshell-based WEG provides a significant
advancement in WEG technology by offering a sustainable solution for
powering electronic devices utilizing agricultural waste.