A Self‐Powered Biochemical Sensor for Intelligent Agriculture Enabled by Signal Enhanced Triboelectric Nanogenerator

• Published in: Advanced science 2024-06, Vol.11 (22), p.e2309824-n/a
• Main Authors: Gao, Along, Zhou, Qitao, Cao, Zhikang, Xu, Wenxia, Zhou, Kang, Wang, Boyou, Pan, Jing, Pan, Caofeng, Xia, Fan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agriculture; Agriculture - instrumentation; Agriculture - methods; Biosensing Techniques - instrumentation; Biosensing Techniques - methods; Electric Power Supplies; Electrodes; Energy consumption; Equipment Design; Fertilizers; Fertilizers - analysis; intelligent agriculture; Internet of Things; liquid‐solid interface; Nanotechnology - instrumentation; Nanotechnology - methods; Power supply; Scientific imaging; self‐powered biochemical sensor; Sensors; triboelectric nanogenerator; Urea; volume effect; Water
• ISSN: 2198-3844; 2198-3844
• DOI: 10.1002/advs.202309824

Precise agriculture based on intelligent agriculture plays a significant role in sustainable development. The agricultural Internet of Things (IoTs) is a crucial foundation for intelligent agriculture. However, the development of agricultural IoTs has led to exponential growth in various sensors, posing a major challenge in achieving long‐term stable power supply for these distributed sensors. Introducing a self‐powered active biochemical sensor can help, but current sensors have poor sensitivity and specificity making this application challenging. To overcome this limitation, a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG)‐based self‐powered active urea sensor which demonstrates high sensitivity and specificity is developed. This device achieves signal enhancement by introducing a volume effect to enhance the utilization of charges through a novel dual‐electrode structure, and improves the specificity of urea detection by utilizing an enzyme‐catalyzed reaction. The device is successfully used to monitor the variation of urea concentration during crop growth with concentrations as low as 4 µm, without being significantly affected by common fertilizers such as potassium chloride or ammonium dihydrogen phosphate. This is the first self‐powered active biochemical sensor capable of highly specific and highly sensitive fertilizer detection, pointing toward a new direction for developing self‐powered active biochemical sensor systems within sustainable development‐oriented agricultural IoTs. A self‐powered urea sensor based on a triboelectric nanogenerator is demonstrated. This self‐powered urea sensor has achieved high sensitivity and high specificity detection of urea by introducing volume effect and enzyme‐catalyzed reaction.