Evaporation-Driven Charge Redistribution and Current Generation for Energy Harvesting Applications

Abstract : The development of low power wireless sensor networks has generated interest in previously unsuitable energy harvesting methods as viable sources of power. We present a microfabricated synthetic leaf that can generate output voltages of 2 - 5 mu(V) for each motion of a gas-liquid interface due to the mechanical energy of evaporation-driven flow. The presented results provide a proof of concept for the use of evaporation-driven flow as a scalable mechanism of electrical energy conversion and energy harvesting applications.