Bladeless‐Turbine‐Based Triboelectric Nanogenerator for Fluid Energy Harvesting and Self‐Powered Fluid Gauge

Abstract

triboelectrification and electrostatic induction. [2][3][4] It can convert ambient mechanical energy from various sources, such as wind, [5] human body motion, [6] and ocean wave, [7,8] into useful electrical energy. The TENG shows a great potential as self-powered active sensors with applications including wearable electronics, [9,10] infrastructure monitoring, [11] and medical science. [12] There are also the advantages of cost-effective, simple fabrication, and high efficiency.The critical challenge for the practical applications of TENG is relatively low output power, which is determined by the surface charge density and the working frequency. Several methods have been developed to increase the charge density on the dielectric surface, such as corona charging and charge pump. [13][14][15][16][17] However, the surface charge density is limited to a relatively low value because of air breakdown. [18] On the other hand, increasing the working frequency of the TENG is found to be a feasible method for improving the current. [19][20][21][22] As a typical structure, the rotational disk-based TENG has been widely studied. Owing to the nonintermittent and ultrafast rotation-induced charge transfer, it achieves a very high sinusoidal current output performance. Driven by powerful electromotors and complicated gear system, the rotation speed of the TENG reaches several hundred rpm and even 1000 rpm. But it is hard to increase the frequency further, because of the structure and the material strength. [23,24] However, the bladeless turbine is reported to have advantages of very high rotation speed, simple fabrication, easy maintain, as well as wide selection of materials. [25][26][27][28] Here, we combine a bladeless turbine with triboelectric nanogenerator (BT-TENG), which transforms the fluid flow into rotation motion and generates electrical output. It can achieve high rotation speed without electromotors. When blown by compressed air at pressure of 48 kPa, the BT-TENG rotated at ≈7500 rpm, which is about eight times faster than those reported in previous literature. [29,30] Thanks to its high-frequency rotation, the short-circuit current reached 63 µA, and the output power was 3.6 mW. Due to the planar structure of both the turbine and TENG, it is very easy to integrate multiple layer TENG on the whole system. When six TENGs were integrated with the bladeless turbine coaxially, the total short-circuit current was up to 180 µA and the output power increased to 15 mW, which is Triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is attractive as an energy harvesting and self-powered sensing technology. The working frequency and surface charge density are the key factors that influence the output performance. To boosting the output of the TENG by improving the working frequency, a bladeless turbine-based triboelectric nanogenerator (BT-TENG) is designed, which transforms the fluid flow into a high rotation motion that drives the rotation TENG. When blown by compressed air, the BT-TENG rotates at an average speed of 7500 rpm. Owing to its...

High rotational speed hand-powered triboelectric nanogenerator toward a battery-free point-of-care detection system

“…Accompanied by the relative rotation of the rotator and the stator, the movement of the positively charged Cu section would induce charge transferring between the two electrodes through an external circuit, thus producing current. [18][19][20] Fig. 2b-d display the output performance of this hand-powered TENG device.…”

Functional Fibers and Fabrics for Soft Robotics, Wearables, and Human–Robot Interface

“…In comparison, nanogenerator such as piezoelectric nanogenerator (PENG) [305][306][307] and triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), [308][309][310] are low-cost, lightweight, but possess high performance to convert various mechanical energy of low frequency (vibrations, deformations/displacements) into electricity, such as energy from human motions, water, wind, etc., showing extensive application scenarios to harvest the distributed energy from human activities or environments, [311][312][313][314][315][316] delivering various selfpowered systems for recognizing force, deformation, and properties of solids, liquids and gases. [317][318][319][320][321][322][323] Here we summarize the representative nanogenerators designed in forms of fiber/yarn and fabric/textile, suitable for self-powered wearable applications and intelligent robots with high adaptivity to various environments. PENG operates based on the mechanical deformation of piezoelectric component, thus reliable configurations are required on the devices in forms of fibers/yarns and fabrics/ textiles that have complex structures.…”

Self-Powered Sensors and Systems Based on Nanogenerators

“…In addition, a self-powered motion tracking system designed by Chen et al can monitor the speed in range ±0.1 m/s, and the acceleration resolution is 0.02 m/s 2 [75]. There are still many triboelectric rotational motion sensors [66], such as fluid speed sensors [76] and wind speed sensors [77]. Velocity is an extremely important parameter in mechanical motion systems.…”

“…On the other hand, a self-powered water level sensor for ship draft detection with an accuracy of 10 mm was presented by Xu et al [94]. Fluid energy includes not only large-scale energy sources such as wave energy but also water flow energy, which often presents in many rivers and pipelines [76,99]. Figure 8b exhibits a water wheel hybridized TENG, which can be utilized as a self-powered sensor for perceiving the water flow rate [95].…”