TY - JOUR
T1 - Fabrication of Moisture-Responsive Crystalline Smart Materials for Water Harvesting and Electricity Transduction
AU - Yang, Mingfang
AU - Wang, Shi Qiang
AU - Liu, Zhaoyi
AU - Chen, Yao
AU - Zaworotko, Michael J.
AU - Cheng, Peng
AU - Ma, Jian Gong
AU - Zhang, Zhenjie
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
©
PY - 2021/5/26
Y1 - 2021/5/26
N2 - It is of profound significance with regard to the global energy crisis to develop new techniques and materials that can convert the chemical potential of water into other forms of energy, especially electricity. To address this challenge, we built a new type of energy transduction pathway (humidity gradients → mechanical work → electrical power) using moisture-responsive crystalline materials as the media for energy transduction. Single-crystal data revealed that a flexible zeolitic pyrimidine framework material, ZPF-2-Co, could undergo a reversible structural transformation (β to α phase) with a large unit cell change upon moisture stimulus. Dynamic water vapor sorption analysis showed a gate-opening effect with a steep uptake at as low as 10% relative humidity (RH). The scalable green synthesis approach and the fast water vapor adsorption-desorption kinetics made ZPF-2-Co an excellent sorbent to harvest water from arid air, as verified by real water-harvesting experiments. Furthermore, we created a gradient distribution strategy to fabricate polymer-hybridized mechanical actuators based on ZPF-2-Co that could perform reversible bending deformation upon a variation of the humidity gradient. This mechanical actuator showed remarkable durability and reusability. Finally, coupling the moisture-responsive actuator with a piezoelectric transducer further converted the mechanical work into electrical power. This work offers a new type of moisture-responsive smart material for energy transduction and provides an in-depth understanding of the responsive mechanism at the molecular level.
AB - It is of profound significance with regard to the global energy crisis to develop new techniques and materials that can convert the chemical potential of water into other forms of energy, especially electricity. To address this challenge, we built a new type of energy transduction pathway (humidity gradients → mechanical work → electrical power) using moisture-responsive crystalline materials as the media for energy transduction. Single-crystal data revealed that a flexible zeolitic pyrimidine framework material, ZPF-2-Co, could undergo a reversible structural transformation (β to α phase) with a large unit cell change upon moisture stimulus. Dynamic water vapor sorption analysis showed a gate-opening effect with a steep uptake at as low as 10% relative humidity (RH). The scalable green synthesis approach and the fast water vapor adsorption-desorption kinetics made ZPF-2-Co an excellent sorbent to harvest water from arid air, as verified by real water-harvesting experiments. Furthermore, we created a gradient distribution strategy to fabricate polymer-hybridized mechanical actuators based on ZPF-2-Co that could perform reversible bending deformation upon a variation of the humidity gradient. This mechanical actuator showed remarkable durability and reusability. Finally, coupling the moisture-responsive actuator with a piezoelectric transducer further converted the mechanical work into electrical power. This work offers a new type of moisture-responsive smart material for energy transduction and provides an in-depth understanding of the responsive mechanism at the molecular level.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85106373360&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/jacs.1c01831
DO - 10.1021/jacs.1c01831
M3 - Article
C2 - 33985332
AN - SCOPUS:85106373360
SN - 0002-7863
VL - 143
SP - 7732
EP - 7739
JO - Journal of the American Chemical Society
JF - Journal of the American Chemical Society
IS - 20
ER -