A Bio-Inspired Temperature-Arousing Battery with Giant Power for Fire Alarming

Forest fire has been becoming a conscious theme as it causes huge loss of life and ghastly impact on the ecological environment. Temperature sensor appropriate for large-area distribution in forest is rising as a subject of considerable speculation to build a fire alarming network. This strategy needs power supplies that can support fire alarming sensors in long term. Herein, a concept of temperature-arousing battery (TAB) is conceived that has no energy consumption at normal temperaturewhile becoming activated in fire scenario. The TAB is made of a thermoelectric (TE) generator deposited with exothermic and endothermic materials on its hot sink and cold sink, respectively. Learning from bombardier beetles, the exothermic reaction and endothermic reaction can only happen when the thermal-responsive switches to isolate reactants are triggered in the event of fire occurrence. Even in an isothermal atmosphere, a remarkable temperature difference is formed between two sinks of TE generator, accordingly producing a thermoelectric voltage higher than 5.0 V and a giant power over 1.0 W, which are high enough to power a wireless signal transmitter. In the practical tests, the integrated self-powered alarming system can transmit an electrical signal in 79 s when the TAB touches a forest fire.