Customizable Twisted Nanofluidic Cellulose Fibers by Asymmetric Microfluidics for Self‐Powered Urine Monitoring
Abstract The unique selective ion‐transport characteristics of nanofluids make them applicable in energy harvesting and sensing. However, developing scalable, self‐powered nanofluidic devices remains challenging due to high cost, processing complexity, and reliance on external power sources. In this work, surface‐twisted, internally aligned algae fibers (twisted fibers) are fabricated using an asymmetric flow field to regulate the assembly process of the algae cellulose nanofibers. Unlike aligned fibers from the symmetrical process, asymmetric flow‐mediated twisted fibers exhibit a significantly reduced diameter (33.6–20.4 µm), increased packing density (0.87–1.47 g cm −3 ), superior fractured stress (249.4–468.5 MPa), and an enhanced Herman's orientation parameter (from 0.77 to 0.89). Importantly, twisted fibers demonstrate energy‐harvesting up to 12.87 W m −2 under a 50‐fold salinity gradient and can serve as self‐powered urine monitors, effectively distinguishing infants' urination from motility behaviors and alerting urine saturation due to high ionic conductivity (7.8 mS cm −1 ) at dilute electrolyte concentrations. This study provides a novel design concept for a self‐powered biomass‐based nanofluidic health sensing system.
Authors
- Zewan Lin
- Qichun Feng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6204-7769)
- Xiaotong Fu
- Zunfeng Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7366-0275)
- Ke Zheng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4624-0881)
- Dongdong Ye (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3377-0656)
- Shuze Zhu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7849-6067)
- Chenlu Jiao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4953-0358)
- Tingting Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3623-7080)
- Xiang Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0121-6527)
Institutions
- Anhui Agricultural University (CN)
- China Pharmaceutical University (CN)
- Nankai University (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology
- Zhejiang University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Functional Materials
- Published
- 2024-12-04
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202414365
- Citations
- 17
- Primary Topic
- Microfluidic and Capillary Electrophoresis Applications
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.14
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- National Key Research and Development Program of China