Effect of gel ageing and electrode corrosion on the performance of direct laser writing carbonization-enabled hydrogel-based moist-electric generators.

The combined use of hydrogel active materials and porous and asymmetric electrodes enables the development of high-performance and high-power output moist-electric generators (MEGs). Herein, we report a direct laser writing carbonization (DLWc)-enabled approach for cost-effectively manufacturing the porous carbon electrode that can be easily integrated and assembled with the hydrogel active material for the scalable fabrication of MEGs. With the hydrogel active material composed of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), phytic acid (PA), glycerol and water, the best performing DLWc-enabled PVA/PAA/PA hydrogel-based MEG exhibited an open-circuit voltage of ∼0.