High-Entropy Ceramics Enhanced Droplet Electricity Generator for Energy Harvesting and Bacterial Detection

The droplet electricity generator (DEG) is a solid-liquid triboelectric nanogenerator with transistor-inspired bulk effect, which is regarded as an effective strategy for raindrop energy harvesting. However, further enhancement of DEG output voltage is necessary to enable its widespread applications. Here, high-entropy ceramics are integrated into the design of DEG intermediate layer for the first time, achieving a high output voltage of 525 V. High-entropy ceramics have colossal dielectric constant, which can help to reduce the triboelectric charge decay for DEG. Furthermore, the effect of factors on DEG output performance when employing high-entropy ceramics as the intermediate layer is extensively analyzed, and the underlying mechanisms and mathematical models are explored. Finally, the enhanced output voltage of DEG not only facilitates faster energy harvesting but also develops a novel method for rapid bacterial detection. This work successfully integrates high-entropy ceramics into DEG design, significantly enhances the output voltage, and offers a novel direction for DEG development. The paper presents a novel method to enhance output of droplet electricity generator (DEG) by high entropy ceramics. Further development is made in expanding the application scope of high-output DEG, not only enhancing energy harvesting efficiency but also promoting the development of single-droplet-electricity-generator-based biosensors. image