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Energy Harvesting Goes Organic: Self-Assembled Peptides for Electricity Generation - SciTechDaily
Sep 15, 2020 2 mins, 6 secs
But these inorganic materials aren’t biocompatible, so the race is on to create natural biocompatible piezoelectric materials for energy harvesting, electronic sensing, and stimulating nerves and muscles.

University College Dublin and University of Texas at Dallas researchers decided to explore peptide-based nanotubes, because they would be an appealing option for use within electronic devices and for energy harvesting applications.

In the Journal of Applied Physics, from AIP Publishing, the group reports using a combination of ultraviolet and ozone exposure to generate a wettability difference and an applied field to create horizontally aligned polarization of nanotubes on flexible substrates with interlocking electrodes.

A group of researchers has explored peptide-based nanotubes and, in the Journal of Applied Physics, reports using a combination of ultraviolet and ozone exposure to generate a wettability difference and an applied field to create horizontally aligned polarization of nanotubes on flexible substrates with interlocking electrodes.

This image shows optical (a-c) and lateral piezoresponse force microscopy (LPFM) phase images (d-f) of the peptide nanotubes on interlocking electrode substrates: (a, d) without alignment, (b, e) aligned using both electric field and UV/ozone, and (c, f) aligned PNTs with graphene oxide (GO) using both electric field and UV/ozone.

“The piezoelectric properties of peptide-based materials make them particularly attractive for energy harvesting, because pressing or bending them generates an electric charge,” said Sawsan Almohammed, lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at University College Dublin.

In the group’s approach, the physical alignment of nanotubes is achieved by patterning a wettability difference onto the surface of a flexible substrate.

Not only did the researchers improve the alignment of the tubes, which is essential for energy harvesting applications, but they also improved the conductivity of the tubes by making composite structures with graphene oxide.

“The main novelty of our work is that controlling the horizontal alignment of the nanotubes by electrical field and wettability-assisted self-assembly improved both the current and voltage output, and further enhancement was achieved by incorporating graphene oxide.”.

The group’s work will enable the use of organic materials, especially peptide-based ones, more widely within electronic devices, sensors, and energy harvesting applications, because two key limitations of peptide nanotubes — alignment and conductivity — have been improved.

Reference: “Energy harvesting with peptide nanotube–graphene oxide flexible substrates prepared with electric field and wettability assisted self-assembly” by Sawsan Almohammed, Abi Thampi, Arwa Bazaid, Fengyuan Zhang, Salvador Moreno, Kevin Keogh, Majid Minary-Jolandan, James H.

Rodriguez, 15 September 2020, Journal of Applied Physics.

September 12, 2020

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