Polyimide/Ionic Crystal-Based Hybrid Electrolyte for a Self-Powered Multistage Fire Alarm
Yuanyuan Li, Sifan Chen, Xiao Han, Fanqun Li, Quan Liu, Yang Hou, Jianguo Lü, Yongyuan Ren, Xiaoli Zhan, Qinghua Zhang
Abstract
Fire seriously threatens human life and causes a large number of losses. Common fire alarms are composed of sensors and power supply, but damage of any components at high temperatures will lead to their failure, which poses a challenge to the application of stable and sensitive alarms in an extreme environment. Hence, we report a nonflammable self-powered alarm, which integrates energy supply and a multistage sensor. The self-powered alarm is a thermal-responsive smart supercapacitor composed of high-temperature-resistant polyimide nanofibers and ionic crystals. Thanks to the sharp conductivity change (more than 3 orders of magnitude) of the ionic crystal at the phase transition point, the self-powered alarm shows stable energy storage performance at room temperature (maintained a high potential of above 1.3 V) and sensitive temperature response in a fire. Furthermore, due to the structural designability of the ionic crystal, the phase transition point can be adjusted according to demand (e.g., 40, 60, and 90 °C). Therefore, the polyimide/ionic crystal-based self-powered alarm can achieve a multistage fire alarm based on temperature. These unique properties of a self-powered smart alarm will effectively reduce the loss caused by fire and protect human life.