Generating Electricity from Natural Evaporation Using PVDF Thin Films Incorporating Nanocomposite Materials

Abstract

Natural evaporation has recently come under consideration as a viable source of renewable energy. Demonstrations of the validity of the concept have been reported for devices incorporating carbon-based nanocomposite materials. In this study, we investigated the possibility of using polymer thin films to generate electricity from natural evaporation. We considered a polymeric system based on polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF). Porous PVDF films were created by incorporating a variety of nanocomposite materials into the polymer structure through a simple mixing procedure. Three nanocomposite materials were considered: carbon nanotubes, graphene oxide, and silica. The evaporation-induced electricity generation was confirmed experimentally under various ambient conditions. Among the nanocomposite materials considered, mesoporous silica (SBA-15) was found to outperform the other two materials in terms of open-circuit voltage, and graphene oxide generated the highest short-circuit current. It was found that the nanocomposite material content in the PVDF film plays an important role: on the one hand, if particles are too few in number, the number of channels will be insufficient to support a strong capillary flow; on the other hand, an excessive number of particles will suppress the flow due to excessive water absorption underneath the surface. We show that the device can be modeled as a simple circuit powered by a current source with excellent agreement between the theoretical predictions and experimental data.