Multifunctional and Physically Transient Supercapacitors, Triboelectric Nanogenerators, and Capacitive Sensors

Abstract

Electronic waste (e-waste) grows in parallel with the increasing need for consumer electronics. This, unfortunately, is leading to pollution and massive ecological problems worldwide. A solution to this problem is the use of transient electronics. While transiency of a few components such as transistors and batteries have been proposed already, it is crucial to have all components in electronic devices to be transient. Therefore, the transiency of more electronic components should be demonstrated to alleviate the e-waste problem. Herein, multifunctional nanocomposite electrodes are fabricated using poly(vinyl alcohol), carbon black, and activated carbon. These simple electrodes are then used to fabricate physically transient supercapacitors, triboelectric nanogenerators, and capacitive sensors. Transient supercapacitors are used numerous times with excellent supercapacitive behavior before being discarded, which show promise as an energy storage component for transient systems. The fabricated transient triboelectric nano generators are used to harvest mechanical energy, eliminated the need for an external power supply, paving the way to self-powered devices, such as a touchpad as demonstrated herein. The fabricated transient capacitive sensors, on the other hand, have shown long linear sensitivities and offered waste-free monitoring of physiological signals and body motions.

Amino‐Terminated Hyperbranched Polymer‐Based Recyclable Elastic Fibers for a Breathable and Antibacterial Triboelectric Nanogenerator

“…Transient materials that are deposable are important for future recyclable electronics, promising to reduce the e-waste and realize sustainable development. [47][48][49] Herein, the antibacterial elastic fiber membrane shows one more dissolvable merit. As demonstrated in Figure 3f, a dynamic dissolving process of one piece of MPVA/Ag NPs fiber membrane in water was recorded, the fiber membrane can quickly adsorb water within 2 s, followed by fast dissolving in water within 10 s and completely disappeared in the 30 s, the solution could be concentrated easily for recycling and regeneration of the fiber materials.…”

Real‐Time Non‐Driving Behavior Recognition Using Deep Learning‐Assisted Triboelectric Sensors in Conditionally Automated Driving

“…monitoring and recognition. [45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54] However, there is little research reporting the use of TENG-based sensors for driver behavior recognition in conditionally automated driving. Considering that every second of the driver's tiny movement is critical to the safety of the vehicle in the process of driving, TENGs with their high sensitivity and micro-scale motion detection capability show great potential in autonomous driving.…”

Smart Textile Triboelectric Nanogenerators: Prospective Strategies for Improving Electricity Output Performance

“…What we expect is to make full use of any available resources in the environment where the device is deployed. Therefore, the idea of a self-powered system is proposed, which is one of the most feasible schemes for low power electronic devices by effectively acquiring environmental energy [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”