Diphenylalanine Peptide Nanotube Energy Harvesters

Abstract

Piezoelectric materials are excellent generators of clean energy, as they can harvest the ubiquitous vibrational and mechanical forces. We developed large-scale unidirectionally polarized, aligned diphenylalanine (FF) nanotubes and fabricated peptide-based piezoelectric energy harvesters. We first used the meniscus-driven self-assembly process to fabricate horizontally aligned FF nanotubes. The FF nanotubes exhibit piezoelectric properties as well as unidirectional polarization. In addition, the asymmetric shapes of the self-assembled FF nanotubes enable them to effectively translate external axial forces into shear deformation to generate electrical energy. The fabricated peptide-based piezoelectric energy harvesters can generate voltage, current, and power of up to 2.8 V, 37.4 nA, and 8.2 nW, respectively, with 42 N of force, and can power multiple liquid-crystal display panels. These peptide-based energy-harvesting materials will provide a compatible energy source for biomedical applications in the future.

Biomolecular Piezoelectric Materials: From Amino Acids to Living Tissues

“…Furthermore, polarized FF tubes based power generator produced the open‐circuit voltage ( V oc ), short‐circuit current ( I sc ), and power density of 1.4 V, 39.2 nA, and 3.3 nW cm −2 , respectively, under the application of 60 N of pushing force (Figure 5c,d). In 2018, Lee et al introduced a meniscus‐driven self‐assembly process to synthesize horizontally aligned and unidirectionally polarized FF nanostructures in a large area 100. Briefly, the substrate was dipped in FF solution, and self‐assembled FF nanostructure was fabricated by pulling the substrate vertically from the solution ( Figure a).…”

“…c) Generated piezoelectric peak voltages with 1 GΩ of load resistance and short‐circuit currents of the FF nanotubes based piezoelectric energy harvesters as a function of applied force. Reproduced with permission 100. Copyright 2018, American Chemical Society.…”

“…Currently, most challenging issues for the development of strong bio‐piezoelectric materials and realization of its applications such as sensors, actuators, and energy harvesters are their limited patterning, control over the orientation, and polarization directions. Recently, in order to solve these problems, bio‐piezoelectric materials based self‐assembly, inkjet printing, 3D printing, and electric field induced alignment method have been attempted 85,99,100,171–177. In addition, unlike robust conventional inorganic piezoelectric materials, the development of instrument to analyze soft bio‐piezoelectric materials is also very significant for the fundamental studies and applications of bio‐piezoelectric materials 178,179…”

Recent Developments and Prospects of M13- Bacteriophage Based Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting Devices

“…Recently, there has been a growing interest in the biopiezoelectric materials to overcome these limitations. Polysaccharide materials [24][25][26][27], viruses [28][29][30][31], and self-assembled biomaterials [32,33] have been identified as good candidates, because their piezoelectric constants are higher than those of previous natural biomaterials, and they are possible to mass-produce. Especially, it has been found their physical and chemical properties can be modulated by their morphology, surface charges, and phases, and the piezoelectric response is directly related to these.…”

“…They combined the knowledge of pyroelectricity with their understanding of crystal structures and behavior, and demonstrated the first piezoelectric effect by using crystals of quartz and Rochelle salt. Since then, many researchers have discovered and reported the piezoelectric properties of organic [15,16], inorganic [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]17], and biomaterials [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33].…”