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Electric Power Generation by Paper Materials

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 Journal of
Materials Chemistry A
COMMUNICATION
Published on 26 August 2019. Downloaded by BEIJING INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY on 12/19/2019 9:22:01 AM.
Electric power generation using paper materials†
Cite this: J. Mater. Chem. A, 2019, 7, Xue Gao, Tong Xu, Changxiang Shao, Yuyang Han, Bing Lu, Zhipan Zhang
20574 and Liangti Qu *
Received 30th July 2019
Accepted 22nd August 2019
DOI: 10.1039/c9ta08264f
rsc.li/materials-a
Power generation from renewable sources is important for sustainable
development due to the depletion of traditional fossil fuels and related
environmental pollution. In this work, paper is used to generate
electricity under moisture ingress. As a result, a piece of untreated
print paper (1.5 cm2 in area) can induce a voltage of 0.25 V and
a current of 15 nA. The power output can be conveniently tuned by
changing the humidity, temperature and number of devices by simple
series/parallel connections. Such paper-based moist-electric gener-
ators (PMEGs) are expected to find their applications in the daily
ambient environment owing to the wide availability and low cost of
paper materials. A ‘power’ book is then fabricated to prove the
concept, providing new insights into moist-electric power generation
and a viable approach for designing extremely simple power genera-
tors for various applications.
Introduction
The depletion of fossil fuels and the aggravation of environment
pollution have necessitated the development of green and
renewable ways to harvest energy from nature.1–4 For instance,
power generation from water has signicantly contributed to
the current portfolios of daily energy consumption.5–7 However,
it mainly exists in the form of hydropower, where a large alti-
tude difference and construction of big dams are usually
needed.8
In the past few years, power generation from water evapo-
ration and moisture ingress has attracted great attention as
novel ways to harness energy from water.9–12 For example, water
evaporation through carbon nanomaterials such as nano-
tubes,13,14 graphene15,16 and carbon black17 was reported to
Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, Key
Laboratory of Cluster Science, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry and
Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, P. R. China.
E-mail: zhipan@bit.edu.cn; lqu@bit.edu.cn
† Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI:
10.1039/c9ta08264f
20574 | J. Mater. Chem. A, 2019, 7, 20574–20578
View Article Online
View Journal | View Issue
*
generate electricity due to the streaming potential. Meanwhile,
the ingress of moisture across certain lms of graphene oxide
(GO)18 and titanium dioxide nanowire networks19 was also
shown to induce a voltage.20,21 Mechanistically, when the
surface oxygen functional groups (e.g. carboxyl, hydroxyl, etc.) of
these materials interact with water molecules, they release free
hydrogen ions while generating negative ions (such as carbox-
ylate) that are unable to move. As a result, the upper part of the
materials layer is full of protons while the bottom counterpart
has a lack of protons, forming a concentration gradient and
driving protons to move from the upper to the bottom layer with
electricity generation.22 Though the concept of moist-electricity
has been reliably demonstrated, the preparation of these
materials usually involves multi-step chemical reactions and/or
sophisticated purication processes, signicantly limiting the
large-scale application of moist-electric devices. Therefore, it is
urgent to nd alternative materials of wide availability and low
cost to overcome the above-mentioned drawbacks. In a recent
study, a highly efficient polymer moist-electric generator was
presented based on a poly(4-styrenesulfonic acid) (PSSA)
membrane.23 An obvious open-circuit voltage of 0.8 V was
detected under constant moisture feeding, where water mole-
cules interacted with the membrane to release moveable
protons from the sulfonate groups and the subsequent direc-
tional movement of protons driven by a concentration gradient
induced the generation of electricity.
As a low-cost biodegradable material, paper is useful with its
universal availability.24,25 Rich in oxygen functional groups and
micro-sized pores, paper may be suitable as a hygroelectric
material. Herein, we constructed sandwiched paper-based
moist-electric generators (PMEGs) with print paper as the
hygroelectric material for the rst time. The stimulation of
moisture led to an open-circuit voltage of 0.25 V for a 1.5 cm2
device of print paper and a linear increase of power output
through series and parallel connections. The performance of
the PMEG could be further improved by soaking the print paper
in hydrochloric acid solution, and ve PMEGs in series were
able to directly power a commercial calculator. Additionally,
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2019

Communication
a PMEG-based ‘power’ book with a voltage output of up to 2 V
was also demonstrated.
Experimental
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Preparation of paper sheets for hygroelectric studies
Different types of paper were cut into 1
1.5 cm2 pieces for
hygroelectric studies. Commercial print paper was purchased
from Tian Zhang Company (TANGO) in Guangdong province of
China (70 g m2, Q/TZ 10). The chemical composition of print
paper was analyzed by energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and
the surface elemental composition is listed in Table S1.† As
commercial print paper contains multiple llers and additive
process chemicals, a best estimation is that the current print
paper contains 8.9 wt% CaCO3, 0.1 wt% TiO2, 0.2 wt% MgSO4,
0.5 wt% kaolin clay (taken as H4Al2Si2O9) and 0.1 wt% talc
(Mg3[Si4O10](OH)2). It should be noted that such a composition
is fairly rough and only used for guidance. However, as
demonstrated in the later discussion, pure cellulose lms and
ller-free lter paper generated electric signals similar to those
of print paper, implying that these llers and process chemicals
only played a trivial role in the moist-electric power generation
process.
Fabrication of the PMEG
To prepare a PMEG device, the paper sheet was sandwiched
between a polyethylene terephthalate-indium tin oxide (PET-
ITO) lm and a Au-coated perforated stainless steel plate. In
brief, the PET-ITO lm was cut into a 1
1.5 cm2 piece and
used as the bottom substrate. Meanwhile, a perforated stainless
steel metal plate (1
1 cm2) with holes of diameter 1.5 mm was
selected as the top electrode for moisture ingress. Conductive
wires were connected to the top and bottom electrodes with
solder and the whole device was xed by two non-conductive
clips. Moisture was introduced from the metal plate side.
Working of the moisture circulating system
A moisture circulating system was constructed for controllable
humidity change in this work (shown in Fig. S1†). The moisture
was introduced with a ow of nitrogen (N2) through deionized
water. When the bottom valve was opened and the upper valve
was closed, N2 passed through deionized water and carried
moisture towards the PMEG to achieve high humidity that
could be monitored with a hygrometer beside the PMEG.
Alternatively, when the upper valve was turned on and the
bottom valve was closed, pure N2 purged the moisture to give
a low humidity environment. The ow speed of N2 was kept
between 0.17 and 0.21 m s1 to achieve a humidity change of
70%.
Preparation of pure cellulose lms
Different types of pure cellulose lms were prepared from
commercial cellulose powders and used as control samples of
print paper. Cellulose powders were purchased from Shanghai
Yuanye Bio-Technology Company Limited. In the current work,
carboxymethyl cellulose (CM-52, CAS 9000-11-7), hydroxyethyl
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Journal of Materials Chemistry A
cellulose (CAS 9004-62-0), hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (CAS
9004-65-3), a-cellulose (cellulose microcrystalline, average
particle size of 90 mm, CAS 9004-34-6) and hydroxypropyl
cellulose (CAS 9004-64-2) were used. In a typical preparation, 2 g
cellulose powder was rst dissolved in 40 mL deionized water
and aer mixing for 30 minutes at room temperature, the
solution was dried at 50  C for 12 hours to give the cellulose
lm.
Acid treatment of paper
For acid treatment, paper was immersed in an aqueous solution
of 1 mol L1 hydrochloric acid (HCl) for 5 minutes. Then the
acidied paper was dried at 50  C for 12 hours aer taking out
from the HCl solution.
Electrical characterization and mechanical measurement
The results of apparent morphology and chemical composition
analysis were obtained using a scanning electron microscope
(SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive spectrometer (Zeiss
SUPRA TM 55 SAPPHIRE, Germany). The X-ray photoelectron
spectroscopy (XPS) measurements were conducted on an
ESCALAB 250 photoelectron spectrometer with Al Ka radiation
(1486.6 eV). All the electric outputs of voltage and current were
recorded in real time with a Keithley 2400 multimeter, which
was controlled by a LabView based data acquisition system. For
zeta potential measurements, the paper sheet was rst
shredded into small pieces and dispersed in deionized water.
Aer stirring for two hours, it was further lacerated using an
ultrasonic cell grinder (SCIENTZ-950E) to form a turbid solu-
tion. Aer centrifugation, the upper suspension was extracted
as the sample. The test was carried out on a potentiometer
(Zetasizer Nano ZS90, Malvern Instruments Limited, UK).
Results and discussion
Fig. 1a depicts the typical device structure of the PMEG, where
a piece of print paper was sandwiched between two perforated
gold electrodes. The inset shows the mechanism of hygro-
electric power generation, where surface oxygenated functional
groups of print paper can interact with water molecules and
release free hydrogen ions for directional movement, thus
driving protons to move from the upper to the bottom layer with
electricity generation. The size of the PMEG unit was 1
1.5
cm2 and Fig. 1b presents a digital image of the device against
a centimeter ruler. The thickness of the paper was 0.095 mm
and paper could be repetitively bent to a large angle (Fig. 1c). As
shown by the scanning electron microscope (SEM) image in
Fig. 1d, the print paper was rich in porosity. Energy dispersive
spectroscopy (EDS) results in Fig. S2† suggest the presence of
a large content of oxygen element, presumably in the form of
oxygen functional groups. In the X-ray photoelectron spectros-
copy (XPS) results (Fig. S3†), the peaks at 285 eV and 287 eV can
be attributed to the C–O bond and O–C–O bond,26 respectively,
further conrming the existence of hydroxyl and carboxyl
groups that can release protons when interacting with moisture.
Under a relative humidity change (DRH) of 70% and room
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Fig. 1 (a) Schematic diagram showing the device structure of the

PMEG and the working mechanism of moist-electric power genera-
tion. (b) The actual photograph of the PMEG against a centimeter ruler;
the illustration in the bottom right is the sectional view. (c) The photo
of print paper used in the experiment. (d) A SEM image of print paper.
(e) Generated voltage of print paper by moisture. (f) Cycle curve of the
generated voltage. Paper area: 1.5 cm2. Measurements were taken at Fig. 2 (a) Generated voltage at different temperatures at DRH of 70%.
room temperature with 70% DRH. (b) Generated voltage under different DRH at room temperature. (c
and d) Series voltage and parallel current curve of the PMEG. (e) The
photo of making a calculator work with five print paper devices soaked
in HCl solution in series. (f) The circuit diagram of PMEGs in series and
temperature, a voltage of 0.24 V and a current of 12 nA were
an actual photo of a working calculator. PMEG area: 1.5 cm2, at room
reliably generated by a PMEG with an area of 1.5 cm2 (Fig. 1e temperature with 70% DRH.
and S4†). In addition, if the paper sheet was removed from the
PMEG, no electric signal was detected when the device was in
contact with moisture (Fig. S5†), suggesting that the paper sheet
print paper contains multiple llers and process chemicals
was indispensable in power generation. The PMEG device was
besides cellulose,27 it is important to identify the active
cycled under an intermittent moisture supply and the output
component that is mainly responsible for the observed moist-
voltage remained as 0.24 V for 30 000 seconds (56 cycles) in
electric effect. The elemental composition was measured by
Fig. 1f, proving the excellent cycling stability of the device.
EDS (Table S1 and Fig. S2†) and a rough estimation of ller
The dependence of the electric output on temperature and
content is given in the Experimental section (8.9 wt% CaCO3,
DRH was further studied. As shown in Fig. 2a, the voltage signal
0.1 wt% TiO2, 0.2 wt% MgSO4, 0.5 wt% kaolin clay (taken as
of the device decreased with increasing temperature under DRH
H4Al2Si2O9) and 0.1 wt% talc (Mg3[Si4O10](OH)2)). Naturally,
of 70% and this might be induced by the inhibited absorption
cellulose is the main component of paper and is rich in oxygen
of water molecules at higher temperatures due to the
functional groups;28,29 therefore, it's highly likely that cellulose
enhancement of water evaporation. On the other hand, since
accounts for the generation of electric signals. Indeed, when
the key to generate moist-electricity is the interaction between
print paper was replaced by a pure carboxymethyl cellulose lm,
water molecules and the hygroelectric material, the voltage
almost the same electric outputs of 0.25 V and 20 nA were
signal showed a positive dependence on DRH at room temper-
generated (Fig. S6†) under the same moist conditions. Similarly,
ature (Fig. 2b). Considering humidity in the ambient environ-
a PMEG device based on ller-free lter paper generated
ment (20–30%), DRH of 70% and room temperature were
comparable electric outputs of 0.17 V and 24 nA (Fig. S7†),
selected as the experimental conditions in the following study.
further implying that llers and process chemicals in print
Due to the compact design and easy fabrication of the PMEG,
paper played a trivial role in moist-electric power generation
it can be conveniently connected in series or in parallel to
and electric signals presumably originated from the cellulose
improve the power output. For instance, a voltage of 0.5 V was
component. Such an assumption is further supported by zeta
generated by two PMEGs and over 1 V could be further obtained
potential measurements. As shown in Fig. S8,† the negative zeta
by connecting ve PMEGs in series (Fig. 2c). Similarly, two
potentials of the carboxymethyl cellulose lm and print paper in
PMEGs in parallel produced a current output of about 50 nA and
water suggest that both materials were negatively charged under
this could be further increased to about 120 nA (Fig. 2d) with
moist conditions, which is consistent with a mechanism
ve parallel devices, demonstrating the great potential of these
mentioned in a previous study.22
moist-electric devices in large-scale applications. As commercial

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Communication Journal of Materials Chemistry A

Protons play an important role in the above-mentioned

mechanism of moist-electric power generation. As a result,
increasing the number of surface protons by acidic treatment
might improve the output signals. To prove this concept, the
print paper was immersed into 1 M HCl solution for 5 min and
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dried at 50  C. As shown in Fig. S9,† the current output of

a single PMEG was further improved to 750 nA and a pack of ve
PMEGs connected in series delivered a voltage of 1.3 V and
a current of 750 nA, which could adequately power a commer-
cial calculator (Fig. 2e and f and Movie S1†). The zeta potential
measurement in Fig. S10† shows that the acidied print paper
was also negatively charged in water solution and there is no
change in the mechanism for moist-electric power generation.
Additionally, instead of HCl solution, treating print paper with
acetic acid had a similar effect. As shown in Fig. S11,† the
current output of the PMEG based on print paper treated with
1 M CH3CH2COOH solution could be increased to 90 nA as well
and the relatively lower improvement compared to HCl treat-
ment was presumably due to the weaker acidity of CH3CH2-
COOH. Due to the complicated reactions between multiple
llers in print paper and acidic solutions, possible ionic
contributions from dissolved llers cannot be ruled out here
(EDS results show decreases in Ca, Ti, Al, Si and Mg contents
aer the print paper was treated with acids, Fig S12 and Table
S2†), yet a detailed mechanism for the improvement is deemed Fig. 3 (a) The actual photo of generating electricity with a folded
paper crane. (b) The actual photo of generating electricity with a paper
beyond the scope of the current study. Nevertheless, prelimi-
fan. (c) Generated voltage of the folded paper crane. (d) Generated
nary results show that treating ller-free lter paper with the voltage of the paper fan. Sample area: 1.5 cm2, at room temperature
same HCl solution could also improve the current of the cor- with 70% DRH. (e) The actual photo of generating electricity using
responding PMEG to 560 nA (Fig. S13†), implying that surface a mask with a PMEG by human breath. (f) Generated voltage of a mask
accumulated protons induced by acidication are the main with a PMEG.
reason for the observed improvement in moist-electric power
generation.
Due to the wide availability of paper, PMEGs can be used in (rice paper) to 0.259 V (copperplate paper), which can be ratio-
a range of scenarios to generate power. As shown in Fig. 3a and nalized by different pore sizes and moisture absorptions. As
b, paperware such as a crane and fan can be used to construct shown in Fig. 1d and S17,† rice paper has larger holes, which is
PMEGs. A folded crane made from colorful print paper could
generate a voltage of 0.3 V and a current of 40 nA (Fig. 3c and
S14a†), and a paper fan could generate an electric output of
about 0.25 V and 20 nA (Fig. 3d and S14b†) as well. Additionally,
human breath can work as a common moisture source for
moisture-induced electricity. As shown in Fig. 3e and f, a mask
with a PMEG generated a voltage of about 0.2 V under stimu-
lation of human breath, showing the great potential of PMEGs
in large-scale and wearable applications.
To further demonstrate the uniqueness of the PMEG, an
interesting ‘power’ book was prepared. As shown in Fig. 4a,
a perforated ITO-PET electrode was used in lieu of a Au electrode
because of its transparency. A voltage of 0.2 V and a current of
16 nA were achieved for an area of 1.5 cm2 in a single page
(Fig. 4b and S15†) and the output voltage could easily be
improved to about 2 V for ten PMEG units on ten pages of the
book (Fig. 4c and d and S16†), validating the concept of power
generation at the moment of reading the book.
Fig. 4 (a) The photo of a PMEG unit using one page of a book as the
Finally, a variety of cellulose-based and paper materials,
active material. (b) Generated voltage of such a PMEG unit. (c) Sche-
such as a-cellulose, rice paper and tissues, were further tested. matic diagram of the ‘power book’ with many PMEG units in series. (d)
As summarized in Table 1, all paper materials showed moist- Generated voltage of the book device with different number of PMEG
electric effects and the generated voltage varied from 0.071 V units.

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Table 1 Generated voltage of various paper and cellulose materials 2 J. I. Lewis and I. Joanna, Nat. Energy, 2016, 1, 16076.
3 J. F. Cui, Y. L. Xi, S. Chen, D. H. Li, X. L. Shen, J. Sun,
Voltage Voltage
D. J. Yang and S. J. Guo, Adv. Funct. Mater., 2016, 26, 8487.
Paper type (V) Cellulose type (V)
4 H. G. Park and Y. S. Jung, Chem. Soc. Rev., 2013, 43, 565.
Rice paper 0.071 Hydroxyethyl cellulose 0.110 5 X. Chen, D. Goodnight, Z. H. Gao, A. H. Cavusoglu, M. Delay,
Published on 26 August 2019. Downloaded by BEIJING INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY on 12/19/2019 9:22:01 AM.

Tissue paper 0.126 Hydroxypropylmethyl
cellulose
Corrugated paper 0.132 a-Cellulose
Copperplate paper 0.259 Hydroxypropyl cellulose
Print paper 0.276 Carboxymethyl cellulose
not conducive to the retention of water molecules. The moisture
absorption coefficient (MAC) is given as
MAC ¼ W/D
100
where D is the weight of a material at room temperature and W
is the weight of water in this material under moisture ingress.
Rice paper and print paper showed MAC values of 3.0 and 3.8,
partly explaining the difference in generated voltage. Overall,
these results suggest that cellulose-based and paper materials
can be used to generate electricity under moisture stimulation,
providing a general approach and considerable space to develop
a new generation of green power supply systems.
Conclusions
In summary, we propose paper as a new hygroelectric material
in moisture-induced power generation for the rst time. A
PMEG with an area of 1.5 cm2 generated an electric output of
0.25 V and 15 nA and the performance was stable over 30 000
seconds. The electric output was further enhanced by con-
necting PMEGs in series or in parallel, and a portable device
based on a book was built to generate electricity by moisture
stimulation. This work offers a novel type of hygroelectric
material for moisture-induced power generation, opening up
a new possibility for practical application of moist-electric
devices.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conicts to declare.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of
China (2017YFB1104300 and 2016YFA0200200), NSFC (No.
51673026, 21774015, and 21325415), NSFC-MAECI
(51861135202), Beijing Natural Science Foundation (2152028),
111 Project 807012, and Graduate Technological Innovation
Project of Beijing Institute of Technology (2019CX10016).
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