A new prototype triboelectric nanogenerator with superhydrophobic and self-cleaning features is invented to harvest water drop energy based on a sequential contact electrification and electrostatic induction process. Because of the easy-fabrication, cost-effectiveness, and robust properties, the developed triboelectric nanogenerator expands the potential applications to harvesting energy from household wastewater and raindrops.

Electrical wave mechanics: A newly designed triboelectric nanogenerator is based on the contact electrification between a patterned polydimethylsiloxane pyramid array and water. Cost‐effective and simple, the prototype triboelectric nanogenerator shows the potential to harvest energy from liquid waves and serve as chemical and temperature sensors.

In the past years, scientists have shown that development of a power suit is no longer a dream by integrating the piezoelectric nanogenerator (PENG) or triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) with commercial carbon fiber cloth. However, there is still no design applying those two kinds of NG together to collect the mechanical energy more efficiently. In this paper, we demonstrate a fiber-based hybrid nanogenerator (FBHNG) composed of TENG and PENG to collect the mechanical energy in the environment. The FBHNG is three-dimensional and can harvest the energy from all directions. The TENG is positioned in the core and covered with PENG as a coaxial core/shell structure. The PENG design here not only enhances the collection efficiency of mechanical energy by a single carbon fiber but also generates electric output when the TENG is not working. We also show the potential that the FBHNG can be weaved into a smart cloth to harvest the mechanical energy from human motions and act as a self-powered strain sensor. The instantaneous output power density of TENG and PENG can achieve 42.6 and 10.2 mW/m(2), respectively. And the rectified output of FBHNG has been applied to charge the commercial capacitor and drive light-emitting diodes, which are also designed as a self-powered alert system.

Silicon-based solar cell is by far the most established solar cell technology. The surface of a Si solar cell is usually covered by a layer of transparent material to protect the device from environmental damages/corrosions. Here, we replaced this protection layer by a transparent triboelectric nanogeneartor (TENG), for simultaneously or individually

When water is passing through the air or an insulating tube, it will contain not only the mechanical energy but also the electrostatic energy due to the existence of triboelectric charges on its surface as a result of contact with the air/solid surface. In this paper, a hybrid triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is designed to simultaneously harvest the electrostatic and mechanical energies of flowing water. Water-TENG, mainly constructed by a superhydrophobic TiO2 layer with hierarchical micro/nanostructures, is used to collect the electrostatic energy of water (Output 1). Contact-TENG, composed by a polytetrafluoroethylene film and a layer of assembled SiO2 nanoparticles, is used to collect the mechanical energy of water (Output 1 and Output 2). Using TiO2 nanomaterials in water-TENG provides the advantages of photocatalytic activity and antibacterial property for water purification. Under the impact of a water stream from a household faucet at a flowing rate of 40 mL s(-1), the generated short-circuit current from Output 1 and Output 2 of dual-mode TENG can reach 43 and 18 μA, respectively. The instantaneous output power densities from Output 1 and Output 2 of dual-mode TENG are 1.31 and 0.38 W m(-2), respectively, when connecting to a load resistor of 44 MΩ. The rectified outputs have been applied to drive light-emitting diodes and charge commercial capacitors. Besides, the water-TENG has also been demonstrated as a self-powered nanosensor for ethanol detection.

ZnO nanowire (NW) ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors have high sensitivity, while the long recovery time is an important limitation for its applications. In this paper, we demonstrate the promising applications of ZnO NW Schottky barrier as high performance UV photodetector with high sensitivity and fast recovery speed. The on/off ratio, sensitivity, and photocurrent gain are 4 × 105, 2.6 × 103 A/W, and 8.5 × 103, respectively. The recovery time is 0.28  s when photocurrent decreases by 3 orders of magnitude, and the corresponding time constant is as short as 46 ms. The physical mechanisms of the fast recovery properties have also been discussed.

Elektrische Wellenmechanik: Ein neu entworfener triboelektrischer Nanogenerator beruht auf der Kontaktelektrisierung zwischen einer gemusterten Anordnung von Polydimethylsiloxan‐Pyramiden und Wasser. Ein preisgünstiger und einfacher Prototyp des Nanogenerators belegt dessen Potenzial zur Energiegewinnung aus Wellen in Flüssigkeiten sowie als chemischer und Temperatursensor.

A nanogenerator (NG) usually gives a high output voltage but low output current, so that the output power is low. In this paper, we developed a general approach that gives a hugely improved instantaneous output power of the NG, while the entire output energy stays the same. Our design is based on an off-on-off contact based switching during mechanical triggering that largely reduces the duration of the charging/discharge process, so that the instantaneous output current pulse is hugely improved without sacrificing the output voltage. For a vertical contact-separation mode triboelectric NG (TENG), the instantaneous output current and power peak can reach as high as 0.53 A and 142 W at a load of 500 Ω, respectively. The corresponding instantaneous output current and power density peak even approach 1325 A/m(2) and 3.6 × 10(5) W/m(2), which are more than 2500 and 1100 times higher than the previous records of TENG, respectively. For the rotation disk based TENG in the lateral sliding mode, the instantaneous output current and power density of 104 A/m(2) and 1.4 × 10(4) W/m(2) have been demonstrated at a frequency of 106.7 Hz. The approach presented here applies to both a piezoelectric NG and a triboelectric NG, and it is a major advance toward practical applications of a NG as a high pulsed power source.