Electrically Responsive Materials and Devices Directly Driven by the High Voltage of Triboelectric Nanogenerators

Abstract

Smart materials with electrically responsive characteristics and devices relying on different electrostatic effects can be directly driven by triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs). The open circuit voltage from a TENG can easily reach thousands of volts with a separation distance of a few millimeters and this high output voltage can be used to effectively drive or control some devices with high internal resistance. This kind of combination is the most straightforward way for achieving a self-powered smart system. Hence, a detailed survey of electrically responsive materials and devices that can be successfully combined with TENG is summarized, including dielectric elastomers, piezoelectric materials, ferroelectric materials, electrostatic manipulators, electrostatic air cleaners, and field emission and mass spectrometers. Moreover, key factors in determining suitable materials or devices to work with TENG are clarified and an in-depth discussion of the current challenges related to these combined systems is provided. With the cost-effectiveness and simple manufacturing process, these TENG-based composite systems have great application prospects in the field of smart mechanics, human-machine interaction systems, intelligent storage systems, self-powered microfluidic chips, portable mass spectrometers, and so on.The ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201806351. mainstream technique in the field of energy harvesting and self-powered systems. [1] Based on the coupling effect of triboelectrification and electrostatic induction, [2] TENG can convert almost all kinds of mechanical energies from vibrations, water waves, wind, raindrop, and human motions into electricity. [3] Comparing with other energy harvesting techniques, TENG is more attractive because of its advantages of simple fabrication, reliability, cost-effectiveness, and wide availability of low-frequency resources. [4] The TENG can serve as a sustainable power supply [5] by developing four different operation modes, [6] including vertical contactseparation mode, [7] lateral sliding mode, [8] single-electrode mode, [9] and freestanding triboelectric-layer mode. [10] Meanwhile, in order to improve the output performance of TENG, a great number of works have been done to optimize the materials and interfaces of the device. [11] Accordingly, the optimized TENG performance can achieve an area power density larger than 500 W m −2 , [12] a volume power density about 15 MW m −3 , [12] an instantaneous conversion efficiency larger than 70%, [13] and a total efficiency up to 85%. [14] As an advanced and durable energy source, the development of TENG has promoted and inspired many fields, such as wind [15] and ocean energy harvesting, [16] self-powered smart systems, [17] potable energy package, [18] highly sensitive tactile sensor, [19] and so on.Generally speaking, the output characteristic of TENG is a high open-circuit voltage (V OC ) reaching a few thousand volts and a low short-circuit...

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