Energy& Environmental Science(Impact factor is 33), world well-known academic journal, reported the latest work of Advanced Materials and Nanodevices Research Instituteontriboelectric nanogenerator,Increasing the output charge quantity of triboelectric nanogenerator through frequency-multiplying with multi-gap structure friction layeron June 2. Under the guidance of Professor Qin Yong, young teachers such as Cui Nuanyang, Dai Cuihua, Liu Jinmei, Gu Long and other graduate students completed the work.
After the development of several decades, sensors have brought great convenience for us, like Internet of Things which is a large network of sensors. However, how to charge those sensors has always been the bottleneck of their applications. Traditional power sources such as transmission networks or chemical cells cannot fully adapted to distributed and small sensors or other functional electronic devices. Therefore, distributed power sources with sustainable energy are extremely necessary. Under this circumstance, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) which can harvest mechanical energy from its surroundings has the potential to be the ideal power equipment for miniaturing electric devices.
Great progress has been made in improving the output performance of TENG. From materials selection, design of new device structures, to construction of nanostructures and other surface modification technologies. Different methods have been introduced to improve the performance of TENG. All the efforts were made to increase the charge density of friction layer. Owing to the output charge quantity is positively correlated to surface charge density of friction layer and output current frequency. The moreelectrostatic charges are on the friction layer, the more induced charges are moving in external circuit. It is believed that theoutput current frequency depends on thedriving frequency of TENG’s driving mode. So if theoutput current frequency ofTENG driving mode can be increased, the TENG output performance will be improved.
Based on the principle mentioned above, wedeveloped a new TENG with a multigap-structured friction layer. The presence of these gaps creates additional contacts between the friction layers, which can induce additional separated triboelectric charges and increase the number of output charges. Moreover, due to these gaps, the TENG generates more output current pulses for each driving cycle, which implies that the frequency of the output current can be several times the driving frequency. In one driving cycle, a generic TENG without any gaps in the friction layer generates 2 current pulses and a unit area charge quantity per cycle (UCQC) value of 0.23 nC cm−2, while a TENG with seven gaps in the friction layer can generate around 14 current output pulses and UCQC value of 294 nC cm−2, which is 1.18 times the value of the record one. This work can contribute toward a rapid increase in TENG performance, thereby accelerating its applications.
Link to the paper:
https://doi.org/10.1039/D0EE00922A
