Self-Powered Room-Temperature High-Sensitivity Acetone Gas Sensing System

Acetone is widely used as a solvent in industry, which is volatile and harmful to the environment and people' health. Hence, it is very important for real-time detection of acetone concentration in exhaust gas or the surrounding air. Herein, a self-powered acetone gas-sensing system (SASS) based on passive half-wave rectification power management circuits (HW-PMCs), enhanced pulsed triboelectric nanogenerator (pulsed-TENG), and Co3O4 acetone gas sensor is reported. First, HW-PMC is developed based on the half-wave rectifier with 470 mu F capacitor and limited capacitor voltage (<5.5 V) to store energy efficiently. Results demonstrate that simulated energy storage efficiency of HW-PMC is 42.2% and is 26.3 times higher than that of conventional PMCs. Then, the external capacitor is connected to electrodes of pulsed-TENG, which forms enhanced pulsed-TENG. The highest energy storage efficiency of HW-PMC can reach 25.8% using enhanced pulsed-TENG. The calculator is successfully powered using enhanced pulsed-TENG and HW-PMC. Finally, according to the characteristics of HW-PMC, enhanced pulsed-TENG, and Co3O4 gas sensor, SASS is developed and can detect 2 ppm of acetone at room temperature. SASS is important to environmental protection and reduction of production cost.