Flexible and wearable energy harvesting systems are of great significance for achieving lightweight and comfortable portable electronics. Among them, aerogel fibers, featuring ultralight weight and abundant nanoporous structures, are ideal building blocks for constructing liquid-directed energy harvesting platforms. Herein, inspired by the efficient water transport behavior of plant vascular bundles, we report a liquid transport-enhanced heterogeneous aerogel fiber (HAF) fabricated via microfluidic spinning. The fiber consists of a twisted, surface-charge-enhanced cotton core for rapid liquid transport, sheathed with a regenerated cellulose/carbon black layer that reinforces mechanical strength and enhances hydrovoltaic energy conversion. Optimizing the core twist level increased the liquid transport rate by 1.87-fold, strengthening solid-liquid interfacial interactions and enabling a single 5 cm fiber to stably output an open-circuit voltage of 0.55 V for over 160 h. Furthermore, matrix-type series-parallel integration of multiple aerogel fiber units allows the system to harvest energy from wearable sweat or outdoor rainwater to power GPS devices, outdoor tent lighting, and carbon nanotube-based electrothermal blankets. This work establishes a bioinspired liquid transport-enhanced design strategy for flexible, lightweight, and sustainable aerogel fiber-based self-powered systems.
Liang et al. (Sat,) studied this question.