Ion transport-triggered rapid flexible hydrovoltaic sensing
The hydrovoltaic effect, based on interactions at the solid-liquid interface, offers a promising route for ion sensing. However, it is hampered by long response times, typically several minutes, due to slow ion diffusion equilibrium in nanochannels. Here, we demonstrate a rapid, flexible hydrovoltaic ion sensing strategy enabled by fast ion transport. Apart from the drag resistance reduction resulting from the ordered nanochannels and gravity elimination along the nanochannel direction, the liquid-driven effect concurrent with low-resistance shear flow at the liquid-liquid transport zone in semi-dry nanochannels are proposed to achieve an open-circuit voltage exceeding 4.0 V within 0.17 s, being two orders of magnitude faster than previous works with infiltration channels. Moreover, the obtained flexible hydrovoltaic device exhibits a wide ion sensing range of 10<sup>-7</sup> to 10<sup>0 </sup>M, a maximum sensitivity up to -1.69 V dec<sup>-1</sup> for NaCl, and distinctive multi-dimensional signals, enabling its application in selective ion sensing and sweat electrolyte monitoring.
Authors
- Feijun Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5686-4076)
- Jun Ma (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5016-8096)
- Cunkai Zhou
- Fuqin Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4143-0547)
- Shuaiqi Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-0789-933X)
- Yongfeng Wang
- Changlei Ge
- Lian-Hui Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8728-766X)
- Yuchen Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9012-8072)
- Hao Shen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3565-3178)
- Shuqi Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7315-2828)
- Yujie Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7324-0054)
- Ting Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5008-2081)
- Mengyuan Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5085-8716)
- Feng Wen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6917-9713)
- Mingxu Wang
Institutions
- University of Science and Technology of China (CN)
- Suzhou Institute of Nano-tech and Nano-bionics (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-08-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63549-1
- Citations
- 8
- Primary Topic
- Analytical Chemistry and Sensors
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 5.89
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province
- China National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists