To improve the performance of the thin hematite photoanode for photoelectrochemical water oxidation, in this work, an nN(+) α-Fe2O3 (hematite)-TiO2 heterojunction photoanode is constructed on fluorine-doped tin oxide substrate to establish a built-in field in the space charge region for facilitating the charge separation in the hematite layer. Charge distribution in the hematite-TiO2 heterostructure is investigated using Kelvin probe force microscopy, which confirms the improvement of charge separation in hematite layer by the formation of energy-matched nN(+) α-Fe2O3-TiO2 heterojunction. Compared to the hematite photoanode, an eightfold enhancement of the photocurrent density at 1.23 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode is measured in the hematite-TiO2 heterojunction photoanode. By using hydrogen peroxide as a hole scavenger, it demonstrates that both charge separation and charge injection efficiencies in the hematite-TiO2 heterojunction photoanode are superior to those in the hematite photoanode. It results from the significant suppressions of the charge recombinations occurring within the hematite layer as well as at the interface of photoelectrode and electrolyte by the formation of the nN(+) α-Fe2O3-TiO2 heterojunction.
Near-field electrospinning (NFES) is capable of precisely deposit one-dimensional (1D) or two-dimensional (2D) highly aligned micro/nano fibers (NMFs) by electrically discharged a polymer solution. In this paper, a new integration of three-dimensional (3D) architectures of NFES electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) NMFs with the 3D printed topologically tailored substrate are demonstrated in a direct-write and in-situ poled manner, called wavy- substrate self-powered sensors (WSS). The fabrication steps are composed of the additive manufacture of 3D printed flexible and sinusoidal wavy substrate, metallization and NFES electrospun fibers in the 3D topology. This 3D architecture is capable of greatly enhancing the piezoelectric output. Finally, the proposed piezoelectrically integrated 3D architecture is applied to the self-powered sensors such as foot pressure measurement, human motion monitoring and finger-induced power generation. The proposed technique demonstrates the advancement of existing electrospinning technologies in constructing 3D structures and several promising applications for biomedical and wearable electronics.
In this paper, we demonstrated a highly-flexible all-fiber based transparent piezoelectric harvester (ATPH) by using the direct-write, near-field electrospinning (NFES) technique and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) micro/nano fibers (MNFs) as source materials. Here, we comprehensively show that transferred high performance transparent electrodes with Au-coated nanowire (NW) electrodes can be obtained using a facile and scalable combined fabrication route of both electrospinning and sputtering processes. Au-coated MNFs of a.c. 110 nm thick can significantly reduce junction resistance, which results in high transmittance (90%) at low sheet resistance (175 Ω sq(-1)). The Au-coated MNFs electrodes also show great flexibility and stretchability, which easily surpass the brittleness of indium tin oxide (ITO) films. Further improvement in ATPH performance was realized by rolling the device into a cylindrical shape, resulting in an increase in power output due to the cooperatively enhanced effect. The rolled ATPH with 0.34 cm diameter produces a high output voltage of ∼4.1 V, current ∼295 nA at a strain of 0.5% and 5 hz. This can efficiently run commercially available electronic components in a self-powered mode without any external electrical supply.
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