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From proton conductive nanowires to nanofuel cells: A powerful candidate for generating electricity for self-powered nanosystems

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Abstract

The likely goal of nanotechnology is the integration of individual nanodevices into a nanosystem, which includes the nanodevice(s), power harvesting unit, data processing logic system, and possibly wireless communication unit. A nanosystem requires a nanoscale power source to make the entire package extremely small and high performance. The nanofuel and nanobiofuel cells developed here represent a new self-powering approach in nanotechnology, and their power output is high enough to drive nanodevices for performing self-powered sensing. This study shows the feasibility of building self-powered nanosystems for biological sciences, environmental monitoring, defense technology and even personal electronics.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing National Center for Electron Microscopy, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, Department of Material Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Caofeng Pan, Jun Luo & Jing Zhu

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  1. Caofeng Pan
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  2. Jun Luo
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  3. Jing Zhu
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Correspondence to Jing Zhu.

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Pan, C., Luo, J. & Zhu, J. From proton conductive nanowires to nanofuel cells: A powerful candidate for generating electricity for self-powered nanosystems. Nano Res. 4, 1099–1109 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-011-0164-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-011-0164-3

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