Colossal Piezoionic Effect from Hierarchical Asymmetries in Soft Ionotronics.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Energy Harvesting
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Soft energy harvesters are crucial for bio-integrated electronics.
• Current piezoionic devices have low voltage output due to thermodynamic limits.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance voltage output in soft piezoionic energy harvesters.
• To develop a generalizable materials framework for high-performance energy harvesting and bio-interfaces.

Main Methods:

• Co-optimizing macroscopic, microstructural, and molecular asymmetries.
• Utilizing asymmetric electrodes, microcone arrays, and cation-π interactions.
• Testing the strategy in ionogels and hydrogels.

Main Results:

• Achieved a four-order-of-magnitude enhancement in voltage sensitivity (>10^4 mV kPa^-1).
• Reached a peak power density of 135.1 µW cm^-2.
• Demonstrated scalability with breathing-driven LED illumination.

Conclusions:

• The synergistic strategy unlocks high-performance piezoionic energy harvesting.
• The developed materials framework is suitable for autonomous bio-interfaces.
• The approach is versatile, applicable to both ionogels and hydrogels.