Inspired by water transport in plants, we present a synthetic, microfabricated “leaf” that can scavenge electrical power from evaporative flow. Evaporation at the surface of the device produces flows with velocities up to 1.5 cm/s within etched microchannels. Gas-liquid interfaces within the channels move across an embedded capacitor at this velocity, generating 250 ms, 10–50 pF transient changes in capacitance. If connected to a rectified charge-pump circuit, each capacitive transient can increase the voltage in a storage capacitor by . We provide estimates of power density, energy density, and scavenging efficiency.
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.© 2009 American Institute of Physics.
2009
American Institute of Physics
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