Harvesting Broad Frequency Band Blue Energy by a Triboelectric–Electromagnetic Hybrid Nanogenerator

Abstract

Ocean wave associated energy is huge, but it has little use toward world energy. Although such blue energy is capable of meeting all of our energy needs, there is no effective way to harvest it due to its low frequency and irregular amplitude, which may restrict the application of traditional power generators. In this work, we report a hybrid nanogenerator that consists of a spiral-interdigitated-electrode triboelectric nanogenerator (S-TENG) and a wrap-around electromagnetic generator (W-EMG) for harvesting ocean energy. In this design, the S-TENG can be fully isolated from the external environment through packaging and indirectly driven by the noncontact attractive forces between pairs of magnets, and W-EMG can be easily hybridized. Notably, the hybrid nanogenerator could generate electricity under either rotation mode or fluctuation mode to collect energy in ocean tide, current, and wave energy due to the unique structural design. In addition, the characteristics and advantages of outputs indicate that the S-TENG is irreplaceable for harvesting low rotation speeds (<100 rpm) or motion frequencies (<2 Hz) energy, which fits the frequency range for most of the water wave based blue energy, while W-EMG is able to produce larger output at high frequencies (>10 Hz). The complementary output can be maximized and hybridized for harvesting energy in a broad frequency range. Finally, a single hybrid nanogenerator unit was demonstrated to harvest blue energy as a practical power source to drive several LEDs under different simulated water wave conditions. We also proposed a blue energy harvesting system floating on the ocean surface that could simultaneously harvest wind, solar, and wave energy. The proposed hybrid nanogenerator renders an effective and sustainable progress in practical applications of the hybrid nanogenerator toward harvesting water wave energy offered by nature.

Renewable energy harvesting with the application of nanotechnology: A review

“…Additionally, the energy conversion efficiencies of TENGs are as high as 55% and can adjust well to different mechanical energy kinds by various modes of operations such as contact‐separation mode, sliding mode, single‐electrode mode, and freestanding mode . Considerably, TENGs can collect energy over a wide frequency area, containing including vibration, human walking, body movements, and ocean waves …”

“…177,178 Considerably, TENGs can collect energy over a wide frequency area, containing including vibration, human walking, body movements, and ocean waves. 179 Because of the appropriateness of TENGs for possibly rich blue energy, different imperative steps have recently been made. [180][181][182][183] The following figure (Figure 9) indicate two imperative electrifications with the water waves.…”

Triboelectric Nanogenerator Using Microdome‐Patterned PDMS as a Wearable Respiratory Energy Harvester

“…Recently, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) that work on a combination of contact electrification and electrostatic induction, have been demonstrated as a promising technology for human biomechanical energy harvesting (walking/footfalls, upper limb motions, textile‐based, etc.). TENGs offer numerous advantages over electromagnetic, piezoelectric, and electrostatic based energy harvesting technologies, namely, low cost, light weight, diverse choice of fabrication materials, and high adaptability design, thus making them more suitable for energy harvesting from low frequency human body motion …”

Flexible Triboelectric Nanogenerator Based on High Surface Area TiO2 Nanotube Arrays

“…By converting these types of mechanical energy to electrical energy, we can expect for tremendous energy generation. [8][9][10][11][12] Diverse application ranges of TENGs have been proposed and investigated including self-powered systems, [13] wearable devices, [14] self-powered active sensors, [10,15,16] vibration energy harvester, [17][18][19] wind energy harvester. [6] The idea of power generation through triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) was first introduced by Zhong Lin Wang in 2012 to convert mechanical energy into electrical energy by a conjunction of tribo-electrification and electrostatic induction.…”