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Compact Hybrid Cell Based on a Convoluted Nanowire
Structure for Harvesting Solar and Mechanical Energy
Chen Xu and Zhong Lin Wang*
The harvesting of energy from the environment dates back perform their functionalities in a nanogenerator and a DSSC.
to the age of the windmill and the waterwheel. Their modern The main frame structure consists of two sets of ZnO nanowire
counterparts are hydro-power plants, wind farms, solar farms, arrays that are placed in a “teeth-to-teeth” configuration[20]
and more recently, novel piezoelectric devices[1] for power (Figure 1a), as previously demonstrated for the fiber based
generation from mechanical vibration.[2] Fully utilizing power nanogenerator.[21] The DSSC follows the template offered by
sources such as light,[3–5] thermal, and mechanical energy is of the nanowire arrays at the top, which is finally coated with a
great importance to our long-term energy needs[6] and sustain- layer of metal to serve as the electrode for the nanogenerator,
able development[7] At a small scale, the development of a wire- and the nanowire array at the bottom acts as piezoelectric struc-
less self-powered system[8] that harvests its operating energy ture for converting mechanical energy into electricity. The solar
from the environment is of great importance and an attractive simulator illuminates the device from the top and the ultrasonic
proposition for sensing,[9] personal electronic,[10] and defense wave[16] is applied at the bottom.
technologies. Recently, harvesting multiple type energy using To fabricate the solid-state DSSC, the vertically aligned ZnO
a single device has been a new trend in energy technologies. nanowires (NWs) were grown on an ITO-coated glass sub-
The first multimode energy harvester[11] has been demonstrated strate (CB-40IN-0107, 4–8 Ω, Delta Technologies, Ltd.) through
for simultaneously harvesting solar and mechanical energy. a hydrothermal method. The substrate was first cleaned by
Recently, the hybrid cell has been developed for concurrently standard acetone/ethanol/IPA/Di water sonication and a thin
harvesting biochemical and mechanical energy for in vivo film of ZnO with 200 nm thickness was deposited by magn-
applications.[12,13] This multimode energy harvester has the etron RF sputter. Then, the ZnO NWs were synthesized by
potential of fully utilizing the energy in the environment under floating the substrate on the nutrient solution surface, which
which the devices will be operating. is composed of a 5 mM solution of 1 : 1 ratio Zn(NO3)2 and
The prototype of the nanowire-based hybrid cell demon- hexamethylenetetramine at 80 °C for 24h. After rinsing with
strated to harvest both solar and mechanical energy is using acetone, the NWs were immersed in a 0.5 mmol L−1 sensitized
a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC)[14,15] and piezoelectric nano- solution of (Bu4N)2Ru(dcbpyH)2(NCS)2 (N719 dye) in ethanol
generator.[16] However, due to the encapsulation problem for 1 h for dye loading. Then the amorphous organic hole-
posed by the use of the liquid electrolyte[17] in conventional transport material, 2,2′,7,7′-tetrakis(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenyl-
DSSCs, solvent leakage and evaporation are two major obsta- amine) 9,9’-spirobifluorene (OMeTAD), was spun on the dye-
cles, thus the present hybrid cell is actually a back-to-back sensitized ZnO NWs with 2000 rpm for 60 s and subsequently
physical integration of a nanogenerator and a DSSC on the baked at 100 °C to remove the organic solution. As shown
same substrate, which may limit its performance. We report schematically in Figure 1b, a cone-shaped surface was thus cre-
here an innovative approach that convolutes a solid-state ated. A continuous gold thin-film coating (60 nm in thickness)
dye-sensitized solar cell[18] and an ultrasonic wave driven resulted in the formation of a cone-shaped electrode as required
piezoelectric nanogenerator into a single compact structure for the NG described below. Figure 1d shows the scanning elec-
for concurrently harvesting solar and mechanical energy. tron microscopy (SEM) image of the cone-shaped surface in
The structure is fabricated based on vertical ZnO nanowire which the space between the cones was 1–2 μm wide.
arrays[19] with the introduction of solid electrolyte and metal For NG fabrication, ZnO NWs (Figure 1c) used for the NG
coating. Under light illumination of a simulated sun emission were grown on a GaN (0001) surface using the high-temperature
(100 mW/cm2), the optimum power is enhanced by 6% after vapor deposition process[22] to achieve uniform polarity.
incorporating the contribution of the nanogenerator. This The nanowires were ∼2–3 μm in length and the interspacing
research provides a platform towards multimode energy har- between the nanowires was 400–700 nm. By stacking the two
vesting as practical power sources. sets of nanowire arrays interdigitatively face-to-face, the gold-
The design of the compact hybrid cell (CHC) was to convo- coated cone-shaped electrode on top served as the “zig-zag”
lute the roles played by the nanowire arrays to simultaneously electrode[16] for mechanically triggering the nanowires located
at the bottom (Figure 1a). This is a functional nanogenerator
driven by ultrasonic waves.
C. Xu, Prof. Z. L. Wang The “convolution” of the DSSC and NG in serial order to form
School of Materials Science and Engineering a CHC is presented in Figure 2a. ITO serves as the cathode while
Georgia Institute of Technology silver (Ag) paste in contact with GaN[23] serves as the anode in
Atlanta, GA 30332, USA
E-mail: zlwang@gatech.edu
this configuration. After connecting to output wires, the entire
CHC was sealed and packaged by epoxy resin to prevent
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201003696 infiltration of any liquid except the window of the DSSC.
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Voltage(V)
COMMUNICATION
Voltage(V)
a a
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025
0 0.0
b Voltage(V) -0.1
-50 0 0.01 0.02
J N G (n A c m -2 )
-0.1
0.0
J HC (µAcm )
-2
JNG (nAcm )
-0.1 -0.2
-2
-100
-0.2
Voltage(V) -0.2
-0.3 0.39 0.41 0.43 0.45
-150 -0.4 -0.3 NG only (light on)
0
)
NG only (light off)
-2
-10 -0.3
-200
J H C (µ A c m
-20 -0.4
-250 DSSC+NG (sonic off) -30 -0.4
DSSC+NG (sonic on) -40
-300 b Voltage(V)
Voltage(V)
c 1.60
0 01
0.1 02
0.2 03
0.3 04
0.4
0
1.00
C u rre n t (µ A )
-50 0.40
-100 -0.20
-0.12 -0.09 -0.06 -0.03 0 0.03 0.06 0.09 0.12
J HC (µ Acm -2 )
-150
-0.80
O ver 6% O ptimum P ower
O utput E nhancement -1.40
-200
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-0.2 0
-200 one of the devices. When only the DSSC
-0.2 -100 component was in operation and under the
-250 -0.3 -200 one full sunlight illumination as (Figure 3c),
J HC (µAcm )
-0.3
-2
-300 -300 the optimum output power density (blue rec-
-400
tangle) was found to be 32.5 μW cm−2 at JSC =
-350
140 μAcm−2 and UOC = 0.231 V. When both
-500
-400 DSSC and NG were simultaneously operating
DSSC+NG(sonic off) -600 in serial connection, the corresponding output
-450 DSSC+NG(sonic on) -700 power density was 34.5 μWcm−2 at JSC =
-500 141 μA cm−2 and UOC = 0.243 V (red rec-
Voltage(V) tangle). An increment (ΔPHC) of 2 μW cm−2
c 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
in power density was thus achieved after
turning the ultrasonic wave on, which was
0 over 6% enhancement in optimum power.
Therefore, in addition to the open circuit
-50
voltage, the CHC successfully added up the
-100 total power outputs from both SC and NG.
Voltage (V) In summary, we have developed a fully
-150 0.25 0.27 0.29 integrated solid-state compact hybrid cell that
comprises “convoluted” ZnO nanowire struc-
J H C (µ A c m - 2 )
-200 0
-100 tures for concurrently harvesting both solar
-250 -200
and mechanical energy using a single device.
The compact hybrid cell is based on a conjunc-
-300
J H C (µ A c m -2 )
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