Search

Heating consumes large amount of energy and is a primary source of greenhouse gas emission. Although energy-efficient buildings are developing quickly based on improving insulation and design, a large portion of energy continues to be wasted on heating empty space and nonhuman objects. Here, we demonstrate a system of personal thermal management using metallic nanowire-embedded cloth that can reduce this waste. The metallic nanowires form a conductive network that not only is highly thermal insulating because it reflects human body infrared radiation but also allows Joule heating to complement the passive insulation. The breathability and durability of the original cloth is not sacrificed because of the nanowires' porous structure. This nanowire cloth can efficiently warm human bodies and save hundreds of watts per person as compared to traditional indoor heaters.

High-efficiency, affordable, and low energy water disinfection methods are in great need to prevent diarrheal illness, which is one of the top five leading causes of death over the world. Traditional water disinfection methods have drawbacks including carcinogenic disinfection byproducts formation, energy and time intensiveness, and pathogen recovery. Here, we report an innovative method that achieves high-efficiency water disinfection by introducing nanomaterial-assisted electroporation implemented by a conducting nanosponge filtration device. The use of one-dimensional (1D) nanomaterials allows electroporation to occur at only several volts, which is 2 to 3 orders of magnitude lower than that in traditional electroporation applications. The disinfection mechanism of electroporation prevents harmful byproduct formation and ensures a fast treatment speed of 15,000 L/(h·m(2)), which is equal to a contact time of 1 s. The conducting nanosponge made from low-cost polyurethane sponge coated with carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires ensures the device's affordability. This method achieves more than 6 log (99.9999%) removal of four model bacteria, including Escherichia coli, Salmonella enterica Typhimirium, Enterococcus faecalis, and Bacillus subtilis, and more than 2 log (99%) removal of one model virus, bacteriophage MS2, with a low energy consumption of only 100 J/L.

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) harness the metabolism of microorganisms, converting chemical energy into electrical energy. Anode performance is an important factor limiting the power density of MFCs for practical application. Improving the anode design is thus important for enhancing the MFC performance, but only a little development has been reported. Here, we describe a biocompatible, highly conductive, two-scale porous anode fabricated from a carbon nanotube-textile (CNT-textile) composite for high-performance MFCs. The macroscale porous structure of the intertwined CNT-textile fibers creates an open 3D space for efficient substrate transport and internal colonization by a diverse microflora, resulting in a 10-fold-larger anolyte-biofilm-anode interfacial area than the projective surface area of the CNT-textile. The conformally coated microscale porous CNT layer displays strong interaction with the microbial biofilm, facilitating electron transfer from exoelectrogens to the CNT-textile anode. An MFC equipped with a CNT-textile anode has a 10-fold-lower charge-transfer resistance and achieves considerably better performance than one equipped with a traditional carbon cloth anode: the maximum current density is 157% higher, the maximum power density is 68% higher, and the energy recovery is 141% greater.

Safe water scarcity occurs mostly in developing regions that also suffer from energy shortages and infrastructure deficiencies. Low-cost and energy-efficient water disinfection methods have the potential to make great impacts on people in these regions. At the present time, most water disinfection methods being promoted to households in developing countries are aqueous chemical-reaction-based or filtration-based. Incorporating nanomaterials into these existing disinfection methods could improve the performance; however, the high cost of material synthesis and recovery as well as fouling and slow treatment speed is still limiting their application. Here, we demonstrate a novel flow device that enables fast water disinfection using one-dimensional copper oxide nanowire (CuONW) assisted electroporation powered by static electricity. Electroporation relies on a strong electric field to break down microorganism membranes and only consumes a very small amount of energy. Static electricity as the power source can be generated by an individual person's motion in a facile and low-cost manner, which ensures its application anywhere in the world. The CuONWs used were synthesized through a scalable one-step air oxidation of low-cost copper mesh. With a single filtration, we achieved complete disinfection of bacteria and viruses in both raw tap and lake water with a high flow rate of 3000 L/(h·m(2)), equivalent to only 1 s of contact time. Copper leaching from the nanowire mesh was minimal.

Large scale energy storage system with low cost, high power, and long cycle life is crucial for addressing the energy problem when connected with renewable energy production. To realize grid-scale applications of the energy storage devices, there remain several key issues including the development of low-cost, high-performance materials that are environmentally friendly and compatible with low-temperature and large-scale processing. In this report, we demonstrate that solution-exfoliated graphene nanosheets (∼5 nm thickness) can be conformably coated from solution on three-dimensional, porous textiles support structures for high loading of active electrode materials and to facilitate the access of electrolytes to those materials. With further controlled electrodeposition of pseudocapacitive MnO(2) nanomaterials, the hybrid graphene/MnO(2)-based textile yields high-capacitance performance with specific capacitance up to 315 F/g achieved. Moreover, we have successfully fabricated asymmetric electrochemical capacitors with graphene/MnO(2)-textile as the positive electrode and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs)-textile as the negative electrode in an aqueous Na(2)SO(4) electrolyte solution. These devices exhibit promising characteristics with a maximum power density of 110 kW/kg, an energy density of 12.5 Wh/kg, and excellent cycling performance of ∼95% capacitance retention over 5000 cycles. Such low-cost, high-performance energy textiles based on solution-processed graphene/MnO(2) hierarchical nanostructures offer great promise in large-scale energy storage device applications.