| Summary: | Thermogalvanic hydrogel, an environmentally friendly power source, enable the conversion of low-grade thermal energy to electrical energy and powers microelectronic devices in a variety of scenarios without the need for additional batteries. Its toxicity, mechanical fragility and low output performance are a hindrance to its wide application. Here, we demonstrate thermoelectric gels with safe non-toxic, recyclable, highly transparent and flexible stretchable properties by introducing gelatin as a polymer network and SO<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msup><mrow><msub><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>3</mn><mo>/</mo><mn>4</mn></mrow></msub></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>−</mo></mrow></msup></semantics></math></inline-formula> as a redox electric pair. When the temperature difference is 10 K, the gel-based thermogalvanic cell achieves an open-circuit voltage of about 16.2 mV with a maximum short-circuit current of 39 <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi mathvariant="sans-serif">μ</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula>A. Furthermore, we extended the application of the Gel-SO<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msup><mrow><msub><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>3</mn><mo>/</mo><mn>4</mn></mrow></msub></mrow><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>−</mo></mrow></msup></semantics></math></inline-formula> gel to monitor the temperature of hot or cold food, enabling self-powered sensing for food temperature detection. This research provides a novel concept for harvesting low-grade thermal energy and achieving safe and harmless self-driven temperature monitoring.
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