The present study reports the origin of surface charge on the polymer surface upon triboelectrification and is a step forward towards the development of next generation of mechanical energy harvesting systems.

No abstract

It was recently reported that more efficient triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG)-like devices can be prepared using inversely polarized ferroelectric films made of same material as the contacting layers. In the present work, a clear correlation between the piezoelectric response of inversely polarized ferroelectric PVDF/ BaTiO 3 nanocomposite films and the performance of the TENG-like device based on these films is demonstrated. This observation is explained by magnified electrostatic induction that is driven by piezoelectric charges and ferroelectric properties of these films. A double capacitor model is proposed that effectively portrays the interactions between ferroelectric layers during contact−separation and subsequent charge redistributions in the external circuit. The new understanding has allowed the result of 3-fold higher open circuit voltages (2.7 kV from 5 cm 2) as compared to that of a state of the art TENG. Furthermore, findings uncover the potential for vast improvement in the field of nanogenerators for mechanical energy harvesting as a significantly better piezoelectric performance of flexible nanogenerators has been reported elsewhere.

Triboelectric nanogenerators based on ferroelectric materials exhibit boosted performance due to magnified induction by piezoelectric charges.

In this study, we investigate triboelectrification in polymer-based nanocomposites using identical polymer matrixes containing different concentrations of nanoparticles (NPs). The triboelectric surface charge density on polymer layers increased as the...