10.1021/acsenergylett.9b02661.s002
Min Wang
Min
Wang
Unnati Joshi
Unnati
Joshi
James H. Pikul
James H.
Pikul
Powering Electronics by Scavenging Energy from External
Metals
American Chemical Society
2020
External Metals
energy densities
power density
steel surfaces
microenergy storage technologies
hydrogel electrolyte compositions
electronic
Powering Electronics
air cathodes
metal surface
Scavenging Energy
energy storage
robot
metal surfaces
energy harvesters
2020-02-14 15:15:36
Media
https://acs.figshare.com/articles/media/Powering_Electronics_by_Scavenging_Energy_from_External_Metals/11855667
This
article demonstrates a new approach for powering robots and
electronics by electrochemically scavenging energy from metal surfaces.
This approach overcomes energy storage scaling laws by allowing robots
and electronics to extract energy from large volumes of energy dense
material without having to carry the material on-board. We show that
a range of hydrogel electrolyte compositions can be combined with
air cathodes to extract 159, 87, and 179 mAh/cm<sup>2</sup> capacities
from aluminum, zinc, and steel surfaces at up to 130, 81, and 25 mW/cm<sup>2</sup> power densities, which exceed the power density of the best
energy harvesters by 10×. When moving across a metal surface,
metal scavenging exceeds the energy densities of lithium-ion and metal–air
batteries by 13× and 2×. Metal scavenging is especially
beneficial for small robots and electronics, whose size and performance
are severely limited by the low energies provided by microenergy storage
technologies.