Synergistic work of photo-thermoelectric and hydroelectric effects of hierarchical structure photo-thermoelectric textile for solar energy harvesting and solar steam generation simultaneously

Human body microenvironment adaptive power generator with multifunction is attractive for the development of portable wearable devices. Here, a PEDOT-based photo-thermoelectric textile is developed via a two-step strategy, where the PDA is introduced to induce PEDOT to form the hierarchical structure. Thus, the top surface of the PEDOT-based textile owns the excellent thermoelectric performance ( PF  = 88.70 nW/(m•K 2 )), and the bottom surface holds a great photothermal effect that can reach about 80 °C under 175w IR light. In addition, the PEDOT-based textile has 51.87% of solar conversion efficiency under 3 sun. A assembled textile solar panel fabricated by the sewing method renders a voltage output of 1.37 mV under 500w illumination. Interestingly, with the synergistic work of photo-thermoelectric and hydroelectric effects, the wetted textile solar panel can produce a voltage of ~ 12.5 mV and a power of 9.81 μW under 500 W illumination. Meanwhile, it can also generate the solar steam of ~ 3 g within 1 h. Therefore, such wet textile solar panels can harvest solar energy and generate solar steam at the same time, which provides a route to fabricate a smart wearable energy harvester that can be used for human body humidity management.