In recent years, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have been used in energy harvesting and microsensing widely, and the performance of TENGs has been gradually improved through dielectric material surface modification strategies. Microscopic arrays mostly require expensive and tedious experimental steps to fabricate, such as micropillars, microneedles, cubes, and pyramids. Herein, a new type of triboelectric nanogenerator consisting of micro‐rhombic patterned PDMS (MR‐TENG) is proposed to enhance the performance. The micro‐rhombic patterns are simple to produce, using only a wire bar coater. The open‐circuit voltage and short‐circuit current of MR‐TENG can achieve 81 V and 2.04 µA, respectively, which are 2.7 and 2 times those of triboelectric nanogenerator with smooth PDMS (S‐TENG). In addition, MR‐TENG can not only serve as a self‐powered motion sensor to recognize human motion status, but also be combined with electronic devices to form a self‐powered system to power small wearable devices including LCD screens, watches, and temperature and humidity sensors. MR‐TENG has the advantages of high cost‐effective, simple process, environment‐friendly, and miniaturization, which have good practical value in self‐powered wearable sensors.
As an energy-harvesting device, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have attracted much attention because they can harvest mechanical energy generated from multiple parts of the human body and easily supply energy to wearable devices. Here, we report a lightweight, portable, and wearable TENG device based on three-dimensional polypyrrole nanoarrays (3D PPy NAs), which can both collect mechanical energy and perform selfpowered sensing. 3D PPy NAs were fabricated by a facile electrochemical deposition method using carbon paper as the substrate, and different growth morphologies of PPy NAs were obtained by controlling the deposition time. Among them, the PPy NAs with a deposition time of 1000 s had the largest frictional effective area with the pores of poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF), and the constructed PPy-PVDF TENG (2 cm × 2 cm) had the highest output performance, with an open-circuit voltage (V oc ) of 20.2 V and a short-circuit current (I sc ) of 1.3 μA, which are 2.35 and 2.17 times higher than those of the carbon paper TENG (Cp TENG), respectively. In addition, PPy-PVDF TENG can collect mechanical energy from different parts of the human body such as hands, feet, and armpits and realize human motion pattern monitoring and sensing. The device can light up 21 LEDs with the touch of a hand and successfully drive small electronic devices such as a wearable watch and a portable thermohygrometer by integrating the rectifier circuit with a capacitor. This lightweight and portable PPy-PVDF TENG device demonstrates great potential in the field of wearable devices and self-powered sensing.
Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) have been widely used in wearable devices for their low cost, portable and self-powered properties. However, the positive triboelectric materials of TENG are still facing problems of low output performance, poor environmental friendliness, and a complicated manufacturing process. We proposed a wearable BP-TENG using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) doped BaTiO3-base ceramic powder (BTO-base) with high permittivity. It is worth mentioning that PVA has strong electron-losing ability, and it also has the advantages of low cost, good biocompatibility, environmental protection, and a simple preparation process, which make it an ideal choice as a wearable TENG positive triboelectric material. Different mass ratios of BTO-base are doped into the PVA film, and its doping enhances the charge trapping and storage capacity of the composite film. The maximum output performance is obtained at a doping mass ratio of 8% and a thickness of 70.68 μm, with an open-circuit voltage of 72 V and a short-circuit current of 2.5 μA, which are 80% and 78.6% higher than those of pure PVA film, respectively. In addition, the BP-TENG can be connected to a capacitor through a rectifier circuit to form an energy storage system that can power small electronic devices such as calculators and LCDs. At the same time, BP-TENG can be worn on different parts of the body to sense human motion signals, demonstrating its application potential in the field of wearable electronics.
Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) capable of efficiently harvesting various mechanical energies from the environment are an effective way to solve the energy supply problem of wearable electronic devices. A series of flexible and lightweight TENGs with different surface morphologies of “dots”–“lines”–“honeycombs” hierarchical micro-structures are developed using low-cost and easily accessible background paper as a substrate. Polydimethylsiloxane films with dots–lines–honeycombs hierarchical micro-structures are prepared by the spin coating to obtain larger contact areas and, thus, enhance the triboelectric effect. Under the same test conditions, the honeycombs TENG (H-TENG) with complex surface morphology has the largest output performance with an open-circuit voltage of 55 V and a short-circuit current of 2.7 μA, which is 2.1 and 2.5 times that of the flat TENG, respectively. By combining with nylon gloves, the H-TENG can harvest the mechanical energy during hand movement and realize sensing of hand movement patterns through the difference of electrical signals. In addition, this device can power the liquid crystal display screen through a rectifier circuit and capacitor. This simple and efficient TENG device shows great potential in the wearable field.
Triboelectric nanogenerators(TENG) are generally utilized on the grounds that they can catch low-recurrence mechanical energy from various types of movement and convert it into electricity. It has been proved that the adulteration of conductive particles in the triboelectric layer can improve its output performance, but metal nanomaterials have different properties at different scales. In this paper, the triboelectric layer of TENG is a composite film made of silver nanoparticles(AgNPs) with different particle sizes(20 nm, 50 nm, 200 nm and 500 nm) that were dispersed and mixed with two-component liquid silica gel step by step. The open circuit voltage(Voc) and short circuit current(Isc) of the 20 nm component of the AgNPs-dispersed/two-component liquid silica gel TENG(At-TENG) are 102.8 V and 4.42 μA, which are higher than the result execution of the other components. Smaller size nanoparticles have more number of nanoparticles when the mass fraction is the same. AgNPs form micro-capacitance structures in the insulating polymer layer and enhance the dielectric properties of the composite films through an interfacial polarization mechanism. At-TENG can light up 53 commercial LEDs and power calculators or wristband electronic watches, proving its utility as a self-powered power source. An extensive experiment proves the advantage of small size using comparison and theoretical analysis and provides suggestions for the selection of TENG dopants.
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