摘要
Exploring a rapid, reliable, and practical means to detect blockages and leakages in liquid pipelines and accurately locate their positions is of great importance in practical engineering applications. Here, we report a bubble motion-based triboelectric sensor (BM-TES) for detecting and locating the blockages and leaks inside a plastic tube. This simple-designed, environment-friendly, non-damaging sensor is composed of several ring-shaped Cu electrodes distributed on a polytetrafluoroethylene tube. The self-powered movement of the bubble under the action of buoyancy makes the inner wall of the tube change from the original solid-liquid phase to the gas-solid-liquid phase, which results in a short-term contact and separation between the liquid and the wall. Based on the fractional triboelectric effect of the liquid-solid contact, an obvious real-time stable voltage peak will be generated where the detection bubble passes. The obvious peaks of the open-circuit voltage with respect to time correspond with the electrode distribution. Then, the peaks can be utilized as a robust and sensitive indicator for detecting blockage and leakage, as the number of obvious peaks of the open-circuit voltage is directly related to the blockage and leakage location. The blockage and leakage in a fluid tube were successfully detected using the BM-TES with an accuracy of 10 cm. In addition, the BE-TES was able to detect the water flow velocity in the pipe. The experimental results showed that BM-TES can provide a new strategy and method for liquid tube monitoring and has great potential application value in related fields.
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单位中国科学院