1 State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China;
2 Institute of Artificial Intelligence, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China;
3 International Joint Laboratory of Nanofluidics and Interfaces, MOE Key Laboratory of Material Physics and Chemistry under Extraordinary Conditions, School of Physical Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China;
4 Fujian Engineering Research Center for Solid-State Lighting, Department of Electronic Science, School of Electronic Science and Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China;
5 College of Physical Science and Technology, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China;
6 Office of International Cooperation and Exchange, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China;
7 Innovation Laboratory for Sciences and Technologies of Energy Materials of Fujian Province (IKKEM), Xiamen 361005, China
Streaming potential is mainly related to electrokinetic energy conversion, which has been considered to show promising potential for frontier technologies, especially sensing. The inherent property of streaming potential is that the energy conversion process is always a continuous state. However, practical applications include many cases of discontinuous states, such as nonlinear sensing. Here, we report a discontinuous streaming potential electrokinetic energy conversion fluid system. Experiments and theoretical calculations reveal that this system exhibits a discontinuous electrokinetic effect and provides a gating liquid slip in micropores, offering the advantages of gating liquid charge coupling and interfacial drag reduction. Moreover, the system is demonstrated in a wearable fall-down alert application. We expect this liquid gating energy conversion system to open up a platform for the design and application of autonomous health monitoring devices, seismic sea wave warning systems, and beyond.
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52025132, 21975209, 21621091, 12075191, 22005255), the National Key R&D Program of China (2018YFA0209500), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (20720190037), and the 111 Project (B17027, B16029).