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Biomolecular self-assembly presents a convenient and promising approach for fabricating functional nanomaterials. The inherent structural and functional diversity of biomolecules facilitates the creation of a wide spectrum of biological nanomaterials through this intricate process. These versatile materials have demonstrated extensive utility in multidisciplinary domains, encompassing materials science, biomedical engineering, tissue engineering, nanotechnology, and analytical science. This review focuses on self-assembled biomolecular materials for energy harvesting applications, organized into 4 main aspects. Firstly, we introduce the self-assembly methods and key factors involved in biomolecular self-assembly mechanism, including hydrogen bonding, covalent bonds, π-π interactions, electrostatic interactions, and hydrophobic/hydrophilic interactions. Secondly, we discussed the structural characteristics of different types of self-assembled biomolecular materials and introduced their mechanical, piezoelectric, ferroelectric, semiconductor, and biocompatibility properties. Next, the application of self-assembled biomolecular materials in energy harvesting was studied, mainly focusing on piezoelectric nanogenerators, triboelectric nanogenerators, water-enabled electricity generation, and other types of energy harvesting devices. Finally, we emphasized challenges in the area encompassing not only the design of the materials and assembly regulation but also probable efforts in improving performance and application fields. We believe that this review will elucidate diverse functions of self-assembled biomaterials, paving the way for the innovative design of biomaterials not only for energy harvesting systems but also for biomaterial-based microelectronic devices.
Jiang et al. (Fri,) studied this question.