Improved Electrical Power of Chitosan Film in Converting Water Vapour to Electrical Power by Adding Lithium Chloride

摘要

Chitosan film has found its new application in energy conversion material which was used to convert water vapour into electrical power. The chitosan film was coated with a gold layer in which the gold layer was patterned on an epoxy substrate. This configuration has provided the positivepolarity on the gold layer and negative polarity on chitosan film so that the potential difference between them has existed. Furthermore, this form is called water vapour cell which works based on direct chemical interactions between chitosan film surface and water vapour to generate electricalpower. In the previous work, a water vapour cell generated the electrical power of 0.004 mW and had a lifetime for 32 weeks. To improve the electrical power of chitosan film, Lithium Chloride (LiCl) was added into 4% chitosan solution within concentration variation of 1, 2 and 3%. Amongstthe variation of LiCl, the average electrical power of chitosan-3% LiCl film was the highest. The average electrical power of chitosan-3% LiCl film was 1.624 mW. However, the lifetime of chitosan-3% LiCl film decreased to 28 weeks. Based on FTIR characterization, the addition LiCl did notchange the structure of chitosan. However, the morphological surfaces became more uneven. This caused the lifetime of water vapour cell degenerated. Therefore, chitosan-3% LiCl film has excellent electrical power as energy converter material.