Electrical Energy Generation via Reversible Chemical Doping on Carbon Nanotube Fibers

Albert Tianxiang Liu; Yuichiro Kunai; Pingwei Liu; Amir Kaplan; Anton L Cottrill; Jamila S Smith-Dell; Michael S Strano

doi:10.1002/adma.201602305

Electrical Energy Generation via Reversible Chemical Doping on Carbon Nanotube Fibers

Adv Mater. 2016 Nov;28(44):9752-9757. doi: 10.1002/adma.201602305. Epub 2016 Sep 22.

Authors

Albert Tianxiang Liu¹, Yuichiro Kunai¹, Pingwei Liu¹, Amir Kaplan¹, Anton L Cottrill¹, Jamila S Smith-Dell¹, Michael S Strano¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.

PMID: 27717011
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201602305

Abstract

Chemically modified carbon nanotube fibers enable unique power sources driven entirely by a chemical potential gradient. Electrical current (11.9 μA mg^-1 ) and potential (525 mV) are reversibly produced by localized acetonitrile doping under ambient conditions. An inverse length-scaling of the maximum power as L^-1.03 that creates specific powers as large as 30.0 kW kg^-1 highlights the potential for microscale energy generation.

Keywords: Fermi level; carbon nanotubes; chemical doping; chemical potential; unbiased voltage.