Nature‐Replicated Nano‐in‐Micro Structures for Triboelectric Energy Harvesting

Abstract

Triboelectric nanogenerators with nature-replicated interface structures are presented. Effective contact areas of the triboelectric surfaces are largely enhanced because of the densely packed nano-in-micro hierarchical structures in nature. The enlarged contact area causes stronger triboelectric charge density, which results in output power increment. The interface engineering also allows the improved humidity resistance, which is an important parameter for the stable energy harvesting.

Vertically stacked thin triboelectric nanogenerator for wind energy harvesting

“…Second, the embossed pyramid array enhances the effective contact area, which enlarges the triboelectric charge density. The relation between the interfacial micro-and nanostructures and the electrical performance enhancement is comprehensively understood [29,30]. Nanostructures are more beneficial for the effective contact area, but they are not suitable for the anti-adhesion property due to the smaller restoring force.…”

Flexible Capacitive Tactile Sensor Based on Micropatterned Dielectric Layer

“…It shows that the prepared films were mainly alike in morphology, structure and quantity of all duplicated caves, and even a tiny detailed structure at same position was uniformly obtained (marked in Figure S2c,d, Supporting Information), indicating that the repeatedly operations did not affect the consistency of those microstructured PDMS substrates. As previous reported, though several microstructural templates such as pyramid‐shaped microstructures on top of Si have been used to construct flexible substrates for flexible electronic sensors, the complicated MEMS fabricating process must be employed to prepare the Si mold. In comparison, the novel natural template and duplicating method in this work can also obtain the same effect but without the expensive and complicated instruments, and this strategy can also apply to other natural templates.…”

“…An effective approach toward improving the performances of tactile sensors is the judicious selection of patterned electrode. Inspired from the bionic inspired fabrication strategy, the micro/nanostructures of natural plants can be used as an effective soft mold to fabricate the micropatterned electrodes . In particular, Su et al reported a new bio‐inspired strategy by mimosa leaf to fabricate flexible pressure sensors with touch sensitivity, however, it was restricted by the relatively narrow detection range of 0–1.5 kPa .…”

A self-powered active hydrogen sensor based on a high-performance triboelectric nanogenerator using a wrinkle-micropatterned PDMS film

“…[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] Recently, a number of triboelectricbased self-powered active mechanical [10][11][12][13][14] and chemical/gas sensors [15][16][17][18] have already been reported by various research groups with the objective of utilizing ambient environmental energy to power the device. 9,19,24,25 Additionally, wrinkle-micropatterned PDMS surfaces exhibited a higher friction area, which preferentially enhanced the triboelectric output compared to flat-, micropyramid-, hierarchical-, and sponge-like polymer films. Moreover, the configuration and design of the contact area of the materials play a vital role in enhancing the TENG and TENG-based sensor output, which can be achieved through intentionally generated micro-to-nano scale structures at the contact interface.…”