Proton-Conductive COF Evenly Embedded Cellulose Aerogels toward Water Harvesting and Spontaneous Sustained Power Generation from Ambient Moisture and Human Respiration

Herein, we develop a new intelligent moisture-sensitive hybrid aerogel by evenly embedding a proton-conductive covalent organic framework (COF-2SO3H) into a carboxylated cellulose nanofiber network (CNF-C) for water harvesting and spontaneous sustained electricity production from ambient humidity and human respiration. Our strategy first exploits the “suspending agent” role of CNF-C to stably disperse COF materials in water for forming uniform hierarchical hybrid structures. By utilizing the synergy of COF-2SO3H and CNF-C together with their inherent structure merits and surface group effects, the hybrid aerogel displays increased water uptake and ion conductivity. Upon asymmetric moisturization, it can create a self-maintained moisture gradient to engender a concentration difference for mobile Na+ and H+, resulting in efficient charge separation and diffusion. Thus, the hybrid aerogel-based coin-type generator achieves a continuous output voltage of ∼0.55 V for at least 5 h in ambient environments in contrast to that using pure CNF-C and carbon-based generators with transient voltage response. Intriguingly, the wearable generator with an aerogel in a mask is more sensitive to human respiration and achieves repeatable and reliable self-charge for persistent electricity along with an increased output voltage of up to 1.0 V and much faster self-charge (only 3 min), both of which surpass most reported moisture-enabled generators.