Snake ecdysis: A potential e-material for advanced electronic technology

Nature has gifted superior e-materials to many living organisms. This work investigates a keratinized hexagonal patterned snake ecdysis for advanced electronic applications. The snake ecdysis carries high porosity, flexibility, piezo-sensitivity, and tribopositivity. Furthermore, the presence of various functional groups and high keratinization are responsible for the piezo and triboelectric properties. First, we develop high-performance and impressively stable piezoelectric and triboelectric energy harvesters based on snake ecdysis. The snake ecdysis-based piezoelectric device is further utilized for various electronic applications such as speaker, microphone, and speech recognition sensor because of its outstanding wide band sensitivity. In addition, the snake ecdysis is further employed as a separator in a piezoelectric supercapacitor. The snake ecdysis/rGO-based piezoelectric supercapacitor delivers an excellent specific capacitance of 82 mF/cm² with 72 mJ/cm² energy density. These results suggest that snake ecdysis for energy harvesting, sensing, and storage applications could be an encouraging approach towards snake biodiversity as well as for developing sustainable self-driven electronic devices.